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“Why does not my boss just do what she’s suppose to?” sighs Alicia.
She is always procrastinating important decisions and it causes creates a lot more work for me and everyone else.”
Alicia is an executive assistant to a Vice President of Technology in a large organization. In her role, she is responsible to juggle the boss’s and department’s priorities effectively and efficiently.
Every day, someone in the department comes to Alicia asking for intervention on their behalf. It ranges from getting signature approvals, feedback on projects, rescheduling long over due meetings; in general anything with a hint of controversy. As the staff’s frustration rises, Alicia feels stress and tension mount inside her gut. She feels caught in the middle, after all there is only so much she can do!
Alicia believes her relationship with her boss is on good terms. She has access to her on a daily basis, though it just seems that once something goes into the inbox, it never reaches the outbox.
Have you ever had this situation? What you would suggest that Alicia do to “get out of the middle”?
One tactic Alicia may want to employ is the 10 minute daily meeting. Schedule it first thing in the morning and go over any outstanding issues. It might take more than 10 minutes the first time, but in time, things will get under control.
Article by Lynn Dessert
Lynn Dessert is an executive coach and training expert on cognitive development and personal effectiveness - facilitating behavior change for individuals and teams. Clients consult her to design and deliver HBDI leadership development programs and career minded individuals engage her for personal development. Lynn is the author of Elephants at Work and owner of Leadership Breakthrough, Inc. specializing in Executive, Leadership and Career Development. Start your discovery process by contacting her at 585.249.5149 today.
Lynn has written 273 awesome articles for us at Elephants at Work
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