What Makes a Good Executive Assistant: Beyond Basic Tasks

As an executive with a tight schedule, you are often advised to hire an administrative or executive assistant to manage your workload.

Six months down the line, you are more frustrated than before, and haven’t reclaimed your time.

What you need is an executive assistant with experience providing high-level support. 

Now, let’s examine what makes a good executive assistant, including the ideal combination of hard and soft skills.

TL;DR – What Makes a Great Executive Assistant

A great executive assistant must understand that they are a utility player. Their roles exceed those of the typical assistant, as they eHere’s a quick summary of what makes a good executive assistant for you, the principal they support:

• The best measure of a good executive assistant (EA) is how much time they give back to you.
• Strong hard skills handle the basics, including calendar management, written communication, research, and tech fluency.
• Soft skills like anticipation, empathy, and quiet influence set top EAs apart.
• Discretion, reliability, and poise decide whether you can trust an EA with your inbox and your family’s plans.
• You can spot these traits in the interview and again in the first few months of working together.

How a Great Executive Assistant Brings Strategic Edge

A great EA becomes an extension of you. They anticipate what you need and spot problems before they reach your desk.

ProAssisting co-founders Ethan and Stephanie Bull group this work into 5 performance multipliers.

Each multiplier is a role a top EA can take on for you:

• Business Partner: Your EA shares your concern for the business and knows how you think. They can sit in on meetings you can’t attend, give honest feedback on a new hire or marketing idea, and tell you how your team is really feeling.
• Chief of Staff: Your EA becomes the single point of contact for your clients, prospects, direct reports, investors, vendors, and family. They filter what comes in and bring you only what needs you. This differs from the traditional chief of staff, who tracks company-wide goals and results.
• Project Manager: Your EA owns a project from start to finish, like a board retreat, an office move, or a company holiday party. You set the goal and the deadline. They handle the vendors, bookings, and follow-ups.
• Assistant/Scheduler: This is the foundation of the role. Your EA plays calendar Tetris by priority, manages your inbox, and preps you for meetings with a short brief on the people you’re about to see.
• Personal Assistant: Your EA also handles life outside work, from renewing memberships to coordinating contractors at home and planning family vacations. When personal errands leave your plate, more of your attention stays on the business.

A great EA grows into all 5 roles over time. Together, those roles give you back more hours than your schedule seems to allow.

We call that result The 29-Hour Work Day, which is also the title of our book.

The Problem with Defining a ‘Good Executive Assistant’ by Tasks Alone

Judging an EA by finished tasks feels logical. You hired them to manage your calendar and inbox, so speed and accuracy look like the right scorecard.

The catch is that tasks are only the visible part of the job.

An EA can answer every email within the hour and still leave your workload unchanged. If you’re still chasing vendors, double-checking bookings, and sitting in meetings someone else could cover, your time never came back.

A better test is how many hours you reclaim each week. A good EA takes work off your plate for good and keeps new work from landing there in the first place.

A fractional executive assistant is built around that test. You share a seasoned EA with a small number of other executives, so you get senior-level support without the cost of a full-time hire.

You can see how fractional executive assistant support works before you commit to a full-time salary.

What Makes a Good Executive Assistant?

At the very least, an EA should be able to perform administrative tasks, such as calendar management and travel planning. However, being tech savvy but with low EQ limits how much an EA can meet their principal’s support needs.

A good executive assistant requires a well-balanced combination of hard and soft skills.

Hard Skills/Qualities of a Good Executive Assistant

These are the technical abilities that enable an EA to undertake their daily or administrative tasks efficiently:

• Tech Savviness: Proficiency in productivity, communication, and project management tools like Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, and Slack.
• Written Communication: Ability to draft professional emails, correspondence, memos, or prepare comprehensive reports.
• Calendar Management: Strong organizational skills to address the principal’s scheduling bottlenecks, allocate time based on priority and urgency, and get the email inbox under control.
• Research Skills: The right EA should be able to quickly find the required information, process it, and break it down into bite-sized formats that support the principal’s decision-making process. 

Soft Skills That Set Top Executive Assistants Apart

Human-centered skills are among the most important traits to consider when hiring an executive assistant, as they often set apart a good EA from an exceptional one:

• Type A personality: Top EAs are highly organized, driven, and detail-oriented, which helps them manage workloads, juggle priorities, and maintain control under pressure, so it doesn’t get to the principal.
• Proactivity: Exceptional EAs don’t wait for instructions from their principals. They leverage their executive assistant superpowers, such as ESP and omniscience, to anticipate needs and solve problems before they escalate.
• Being a Team Player: While an EA’s primary role is to support their principal, they must also be willing to facilitate communication within the organization. Their collaboration is often invaluable to the team, considering they are the primary contact for the C-Suite, where most executive decisions are made.
• Empathy: Top EAs can read, understand, and respond effectively to people’s emotions, especially when dealing with stakeholders, so they represent their principals in the best light.
• Using Influence or ‘Grease’: An EA’s proximity to their principal comes with ‘power’ they can leverage to get things done. Exceptional EAs use the influence to make things happen behind the scenes and smooth over obstacles, without overstepping.

Character Traits That Earn Your Full Trust

Hard and soft skills can grow over time. Character is much harder to teach.

These 4 traits decide whether you can trust an EA with your inbox, your finances, and your family’s plans:

• Discretion: A good EA treats your information the way a doctor or attorney would. Their default reply to an outside question is “I’m not at liberty to say” until you give permission.
• Reliability: They do what they say they’ll do, by the time they said they’d do it. After a few weeks, you stop checking their work.
• Poise with every audience: They’re as comfortable speaking with your landscaper as with your board chair. Everyone they deal with walks away with a good impression of you.
• A hospitality mindset: Service is what an EA does for people. Hospitality is how they make those people feel. A great EA gets both right.

How to Tell if an Executive Assistant is Good

You can test for these traits before you hire someone. You can also confirm them once your EA settles into the role.

These signals help you judge a candidate in the interview and an EA once they start:

Signals to Look for in the Interview

The interview is where you check whether a candidate’s experience holds up.

Listen and watch for these signals:

• Detailed stories: Ask them to walk you through a typical day with a specific executive at a specific company. The more color they add, the more likely the experience is real.
• Responsibilities that grew: Ask what they handled when they started a role and what they handled when they left. A good EA’s scope expands as each principal learns to trust them.
• Discretion about past principals: Notice how they talk about difficult executives they’ve supported. A candidate who badmouths a former principal will likely talk about you the same way.
• Respect for everyone in the room: Hold at least one interview over breakfast or lunch. Watch how they treat the server, because that’s how they’ll treat your clients and your team.
• The client test: Ask yourself whether you’d trust this person in front of your largest client. If you hesitate, keep looking.

Our guide to executive assistant interview questions covers the prompts that draw these signals out.

Signals to Watch Once They Start

The clearest proof shows up after the first few weeks of working together.

A working partnership usually shows these signs:

• Shorter conversations: Your check-ins get shorter as your EA learns your shorthand. A to-do list that once needed a long meeting gets settled in a few minutes.
• Problems caught early: Your EA spots a meeting that clashes with your son’s hockey tryouts and reschedules it before you notice. You hear about the conflict only after it’s solved.
• No repeat instructions: You rarely explain the same preference twice. If you’re giving an instruction for the third time, the onboarding needs another look.
• How you feel when they reach out: A message from a good EA usually means something just got handled. If their emails and texts make you feel dread instead of relief, it’s time for an honest talk about what needs to change.

Why a Good Executive Assistant Also Needs a Good Principal

Even a skilled EA struggles in a partnership that’s set up poorly. In The 29-Hour Work Day, we argue that micromanagement drains more value from an EA than any skill gap.

Your side of the partnership comes down to 3 habits:

• Trust them on day one: Give your EA access to your calendar, inbox, and travel accounts early. Pull that trust back only if their actions give you a reason to.
• Front-load context: Share your preferences, from your eye doctor to your favorite airline seat. Copy your EA on threads they don’t need to act on, because that context helps them make decisions the way you would.
• Judge the outcome: Focus on whether the job got done and everyone is satisfied. A method that differs from yours isn’t a mistake if the result is right.

When you hold up your side, a skilled EA can take on far more than your calendar.

ProAssisting’s Approach to High-Level Executive Assistants

ProAssisting screens every candidate for the skills and traits a good EA needs.

We follow the 51/49 rule, adapted from restaurateur Danny Meyer, which gives soft skills a slight edge over hard skills. Soft skills, like how someone sounds on the phone with your biggest client, are much harder to teach.

That standard shows up in 4 ways:

• Strict screening: Candidates go through resume and LinkedIn reviews, personality and work ethic assessments, and a background check. Fewer than 5% of candidates who apply become ProAssistants, the US-based EAs we partner with our clients.
• Proven experience: Every ProAssistant brings at least 5 years of experience as an EA, project manager, or equivalent at globally recognized brands.
• Fair pay: We pass more than 75% of your monthly retainer directly to your ProAssistant. That keeps experienced EAs with us for the long term.
• Room to focus: A ProAssistant is typically shared by just 3 clients, according to our FAQs. That leaves them room to learn your preferences in depth.

You’re a 30-minute meeting away from saving hours of your time every week. Book a free consultation with ProAssisting to meet a ProAssistant who fits the way you work.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Let’s wind up by answering some commonly asked questions about what makes a good EA.

Is Technical Knowledge Important for a Good Executive Assistant?

Yes. Technical knowledge is essential for a good executive assistant, as it enhances their ability to get up to speed on new technologies quickly. At ProAssisting, we empower our EAs to learn at least one tool in relevant categories, including CRMs, Image Editors, and LMS. 

Can a Remote Executive Assistant Be as Effective as an In-Office EA?

Yes. A remote EA can be as effective as an in-office EA, considering they can undertake most roles relating to scheduling, project management, problem-solving, and being the contact person for your office. The only limitation of a remote EA is if you need an assistant to receive your mail, send out packages, or manage your physical office’s reception area.

Should Executive Assistants Receive Ongoing Training and Development?

Yes, they should. Even seasoned EAs need time to learn your business, your people, and the tools you rely on. Give feedback in the moment rather than saving it for an annual review, so their support keeps pace with how you work.

What Are the Top 3 Skills of an Executive Assistant?

Calendar management, clear written communication, and discretion top the list. The first 2 keep your day running smoothly. Discretion is what lets you trust an EA with your inbox, your finances, and your family’s plans.

Does a Good Executive Assistant Need Industry Experience?

Usually, it doesn’t. Core EA skills like organization, communication, and judgment carry over from one industry to the next. In The 29-Hour Work Day, we describe a good EA as a chameleon who blends into any environment.

Find a Good Executive Assistant Through ProAssisting

A good EA shows their value in your week before anywhere else. You see fewer double bookings, shorter check-ins, and more hours that belong to you.

That kind of partner is hard to find on your own. ProAssisting matches executives, founders, and board directors with ProAssistants who’ve already passed a strict screening process before you ever meet them.

Your ProAssistant handles your calendar, inbox, projects, and personal logistics.

ProAssistants have worked for Fortune 500 companies like Oracle, Target, and JPMorgan Chase. You get that caliber of support for 50 to 80% less than hiring an EA in-house.

Book your free consultation and meet a ProAssistant matched to you to start getting hours back each week.