Back in August Andrew (IAM General Manager), sat on TodaysPA expert panel discussion at the 2017 conference, where there was heated discussion over what Business Leaders look for in their PAs. Earlier in the year, we invited the PAs and EAs amongst our members to help with Today’s PA 2017 survey, which was looking to identify the skills, talents and abilities which they believed were the qualities needed to succeed in the multi-faceted role.
Participants were asked to rank the following qualities:
- Ability to prioritise, to judge situations and decide what’s important/not important
- Assertiveness
- Being proactive, ability to take the initiative
- Excellent communication skills (verbal and written)
- Flexibility, being able to handle continuous change and shifting priorties
- Forward planning, being able to anticipate colleagues’ and boss’s needs
- Good organisational skills
- Staying calm in stressful situations
- Strategic understanding of business and manager
- Up to date technology skills
The results showed that excellent communication skills (both verbal and written) were considered the top quality amongst the respondents. Other qualities ranked were:
- Good organisational skills (2nd)
- Forward planning (3rd)
- Able to prioritise (4th)
- Being pro-active (5th)
- Being flexible (6th)
- Strategic understanding of business and manager (7th)
- Technology skills (8th)
- Assertiveness and ability to stay calm in stressful situations (joint last)
Many of the responses echoed the skills which were highlighted by the expert panel at the 2017 conference and you can view a full commentary of the results here
If you are a PA, what do you think of the results? or, if you work with, or manage a team inclusive of PAs do you agree with how the ranking?
Let us know on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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