Why Attend
Executive assistants nowadays hold a very important position of influence and need to build a powerful partnership with the senior management team. This course will enable you to have the right competence to work in partnership with your manager. After all, your success will have a direct effect on your manager’s success. You already hold this position because of your current capabilities. This course seeks to supplement your current set of capabilities and competencies by adding other highly needed competencies that will lead to excellence in your position.
During this course you will discover ways to enhance your self-empowerment, confidence and forward thinking, allowing you to become a true business partner with the executive team. You will learn and practice powerful emotional intelligence strategies which you can immediately apply at the workplace. Moreover, you will participate in in-depth discussions on the importance of building systems and having a systematic thinking approach, leading you to create several systems at the workplace. You will also be involved in real negotiations with other participants which will enable you to gain the competence to plan and lead negotiations with suppliers. Finally, you will have the ability to develop action plans that will enhance your professional image and the image of your department and company.
Course Methodology
This is a highly interactive course which uses several group and individual role plays. Each participant will have the chance to conduct a mini presentation and be engaged in planning and executing negotiations with other participants. You will be constantly engaged in practical group and individual activities which will allow you to immediately test and apply your learning. Moreover, the use of several self-assessment tests will enable you to discover your hidden talents and areas of improvement. Finally, you will get an opportunity to discuss, share and find solutions to your work challenges in a supportive environment.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Provide full support to stakeholders in order to enhance the success of the business
- Apply emotional intelligence to foster excellent business relationships, laterally and vertically
- Plan and present strong business cases to their managers
- Build and maintain different organizing systems that will lead to increased productivity
- Generate win-win outcomes in any negotiation
- Design an action plan which will enhance their personal, departmental and organizational image
Target Audience
Senior administrators, office managers, executive assistants and supervisors of junior staff who already possess the essential administration skills and seek to move their career further up.
Target Competencies
- Forward thinking
- Emotional control
- Presenting ideas
- Building and maintaining systems
- Negotiation
- Event planning
- Image building
Course Outline
- Partnering strategically ‘with’ your leader
- Understanding the strategic role of today’s executive assistant
- Working ‘with’ versus working ‘for’ your leader
- Achieving higher engagement and involvement in your leader’s scope of work
- Self-empowerment: creating your own mission statement
- Increasing your share in decision making
- Developing forward thinking: being a proactive thinker
- The power of Emotional Intelligence (EI)
- Understanding the four dimensions of EI:
- Awareness of own role
- Management of own responsibilities
- Awareness of office politics and environment
- Management of stakeholders
- Recognizing how stress and feelings affect performance
- Applying EI in building relations and dealing with difficult situations
- Understanding the four dimensions of EI:
- Presenting your ideas with passion and credibility
- Planning for a convincing presentation
- Developing and organizing objectives and content
- Delivering the presentation and fielding questions
- Using visual aids to support the presentation
- Building and maintaining systems
- Definition of ‘system’
- The why and how of systems
- Filing systems: controlling documents, e-filing and cloud storage
- Time management systems: planning, organizing and controlling
- Idea generating systems: spotting and implementing improvements
- Self-management systems: setting your own targets and exceeding them
- Using discipline to maintain and ensure system continuity
- Negotiating with suppliers (internal and external)
- Principles of successful negotiations with internal and external suppliers
- Negotiation planning
- Negotiations tactics
- Aiming at win-win outcomes
- Negotiating for the long term
- Protocol and business etiquette
- Principles of business etiquette
- Phone, e-mail and meeting etiquette
- Understanding values, beliefs and perceptions
- Dealing with different personalities and cultures
- Creating a personal brand within the organization
