AI adoption is accelerating, career advancement comes from responsibility not title, and professional development drives influence and pay. Assistants who step into these opportunities are moving from “support” into strategic partnership, shaping outcomes that drive organisations forward.
Category: Partnership
One Hot-Headed Comment, a Tribunal, and a £30,000 Lesson in Due Process
A UK tribunal just ruled that calling your boss a d**khead isn’t grounds for instant dismissal — awarding nearly £30,000 to the office manager who was fired for it. The case is a sharp reminder for leaders: due process matters more than knee-jerk reactions. For assistants and office managers, it’s also a lesson in managing pressure before it boils over.
What If We Reimagined the Administrative Profession?
Imagine a world where assistants are recognised not as overhead but as vital infrastructure — as strategic as HR, finance, or marketing. A profession where their voice carries weight, their onboarding is robust, and their potential is fully unlocked. What if empowering assistants didn’t just free leaders’ time, but shifted the entire trajectory of organisations?
Stop Waiting for Permission: Leadership Is a Choice, Not a Title
At two recent roundtables on stepping into leadership without a title, the potential in the room was extraordinary — bold ideas, sharp insights, the kind of thinking that could transform organisations. But fear and hesitancy kept much of it unspoken. The truth is simple: no one else can empower you. Leadership isn’t a title, it’s a choice. And the choice is yours to make today.
Why Discipline Doesn’t Scale Without an Assistant
An article I read this weekend argued that scaling from £10M to £100M requires discipline — clarity, speed, standards, and simplicity. But here’s the truth: assistants are already doing this work. They filter noise into clarity, create organisational rhythm, uphold cultural standards, and intercept complexity before it stalls growth. Discipline only scales when leaders have an assistant reinforcing it, every single day.
Scenario Planning: The Secret Superpower of Strategic Assistants
Executives make decisions; assistants make them work. The difference between a task-based assistant and a strategic business partner often comes down to one skill: scenario planning. From cancelled flights to tech failures, top assistants anticipate disruption, build robust alternatives, and execute backup plans before anyone notices a problem. This isn’t just logistics—it’s business continuity, risk management, and executive leverage.
Are You Holding Your Assistant Hostage — or Helping Them Soar?
Too many executives hire assistants for a skillset, then freeze them at that level. Restricting access, keeping decision-making closed, and treating them as reactive task managers doesn’t just limit the assistant — it limits the leader. The assistants who become true business partners don’t get there by chance. They grow because someone invested, coached, and created space for them to develop foresight and judgement. If you want leverage, continuity, and strategic support, the question isn’t about their potential. It’s about your leadership.
Grant Thornton May Have Cut Assistants — But the Business Community Is Pushing Back
Grant Thornton’s decision to axe nearly 100 assistants sparked anger across the profession, but the comments under the Financial Times article tell a more hopeful story. While some still cling to outdated views that leaders should “do their own admin,” many business professionals pushed back, recognising assistants as critical to productivity and profitability. From consultants warning that outsourcing admin is “a disaster waiting to happen,” to senior leaders pointing out that good assistants drive firm-wide efficiency, the message is clear: assistants aren’t overhead. They are infrastructure. And the wider business world is finally starting to say it too.
Why It’s Time to Recognise Administration as a Strategic Function
The Financial Times’ use of the outdated term “secretaries” in a 2025 article about Grant Thornton is a stark reminder of how language keeps the administrative profession undervalued. Administration represents one-fifth of the global workforce — over half a billion people — yet it still lacks a formal voice at leadership tables. While some companies are adopting progressive titles like Administrative Business Partner and Director of Administration, most executives continue making decisions about administration without truly understanding its strategic impact. Until administration is recognised as a core business function, organisations will keep making short-sighted choices that undermine leadership effectiveness.