Welcome back - this ep is really meaningful to me. We’re getting into a topic I had to work out instinctively back in my career. Personal Brand. Gosh its exciting.
Now - its not a new thing. Personal brand.
BUT why it matters is new and that’s what I want to talk about. Because if there’s one lever for EAs to pull to stand out from the pack right now - this is it.
And no, its not all about showing up on LinkedIn and being visible there, jumping into every single comment, making sure your name is coming up in feeds. It’s so much more than that. And its considered and intentional. And we’re going to break down why EAs should be alive to this in this episode.
Here’s where I want to start - I’m pretty sure you’ll feel this in your bones.
There’s a pattern I’ve seen again and again over the years.
Two executive assistants can be working just as hard, just as capably, and yet be categorised very differently inside an organisation.
One is seen as lovely. Helpful. Reliable. The kind of person everyone appreciates.
The other is seen as talent.
And that difference is rarely about skill or effort.
It’s about how their value is understood.
So when I talk about personal brand today, it’s not in the way it’s usually framed.
Not visibility. Not self-promotion. Not being louder or more performative - look at me antics.
I want to talk about personal brand as the mechanism through which your value is either recognised or quietly dismissed.
Because whether you like the term or not, whether you think it applies to you or not….
a narrative about you already exists.
And if you’re not shaping it, something else is.
More specifically - some one else is.
Many EAs still operate from an outdated script.
Do great work quietly.
Don’t draw attention to yourself.
Don’t need much from your executive.
Wait to be noticed.
Wait to be offered development.
Wait to be invited into bigger conversations.
Jump onto LinkedIn in and read the comments sections.
You’ll still find EAs who will go to WAR to defend the idea they don’t have to be visible, that being the person behind the person is both metaphorical and literally.
I know because when I post on this, some EAs find it triggering.
Because it asks them to be different and outside their comfort zone.
This behaviour - is often reinforced by other EAs watching each other and modelling the same thing.
And to be clear, this approach does lead to appreciation.
It does lead to people saying you’re the glue, the spine, the heart of the organisation - all those things
But I wouldn’t be a great trainer or advocate if I didn’t say this.
It does not reliably lead to being valued.
I’m sorry. It doesn’t.
Especially not in the environments organisations are operating in now.
Under pressure, organisations don’t make nuanced decisions. They make fast ones.
They decide which roles are critical.
Which can stretch.
Which can be diluted.
Which can be outsourced.
Which can be supported by AI.
And those decisions are shaped by perception as much as reality.
This is where personal brand stops being a nice-to-have and becomes a risk issue.
I know because as an EA to CEOs I sat in many restructuring conversations over the years and had to fight hard to keep my teams and put the language to their value - that they were keeping hidden through this behaviour.
And I get it.
Many capable EAs resist the personal brand conversation because they associate it with being showy or full of themselves.
They worry about how it will look. They worry about taking up space. They worry about being seen as needing attention.
But that resistance doesn’t remove the brand.
It just means the brand defaults.
And the default brand for EAs has historically been “helpful support”.
Helpful support is appreciated.
Helpful support is not always protected.
I know you’ve seen it in your own career.
What personal brand actually comes down to is this - in the context of being an EA.
What do people say about you when you’re not in the room?
How do they describe the value you bring?
What do they trust you with?
What assumptions do they make about your capability, your judgement, and your understanding of the business?
Those answers are shaped every day through the language you use, the questions you ask, the way you frame your work, and whether you can articulate the impact of what you do.
If you don’t speak to your value, that sends a signal.
If you can’t articulate how your work drives outcomes, that sends a signal.
If you only talk about tasks, calendars, and logistics, that becomes the story.
Executives are noticing more than EAs realise.
They’re listening to how you describe your work.
They’re watching how you handle ambiguity.
They’re noticing whether you get the business or just the task list.
They’re paying attention to whether you can hold judgement, restraint, and perspective under pressure.
This is the art and science of the role. And it’s rarely named.
The wake-up moment for many EAs comes too late.
It usually looks like
When pay rises don’t happen.
When development is denied.
When another executive is added to their workload.
When they’re not brought into conversations early.
When decisions happen around them, or to them - just not with them.
Those are not random outcomes.
They’re signals that there’s a gap between how an EA sees themselves and how they’re being seen.
Here’s the line I want to be very clear about.
If you want to be valued today, you must have a defined personal brand.
You have to be clear about what you want to be known for.
And every experience of working with you needs to reinforce that.
That clarity becomes your north star. It’s how you lead yourself every single day.
This doesn’t mean changing who you are.
It doesn’t mean becoming louder.
It doesn’t mean performing.
It means being intentional.
And the good news is this.
It’s not too late.
My recommendation is to carve some space out to really sit in the idea of what am I known for and what do I want to be known for?
Reputation is built over time, but it can be redirected with clarity.
The moment you decide what you want to be known for, you can start aligning how you show up, how you speak, and how you frame your contribution.
Personal brand isn’t about ego.
It’s about ensuring the narrative about you matches the reality of the value you bring.
And in a landscape that’s moving as fast as this one is, that matters more than ever.
This is a topic I work with regularly in keynote settings and in-house with EA teams.
The reason I’ve always kept it as a pillar is because personal brand, whether we like the term or not, is shaping who gets trusted, protected, and developed inside organisations right now.
I see it every day.
These conversations are happening quietly behind the scenes.
This episode is a chance to bring them into the open.
If this episode unsettled you a little, that was intentional.
There’s nothing I love more than making the EAs in my world feel good, but not at the expense of not talking about the things that really matter, even if at times they can feel a little hard to hear.
If it resonated, please consider sharing it with a colleague who’d be interested to hear it.
And if you’re curious about exploring this work in a keynote, at a conference, or as an expanded in-house training session, you’re welcome to get in touch. It’s a topic I LOVE to speak on because it’s something EAs can control quickly and see it fast gains from as soon as they focus on it.
It’s my hope that this episode has given you either a refresher, a light bulb moment - and if you’re feeling resistance to the idea of being seen - not as an extension of your executive but for YOU and YOUR value - that you can get curious about and sit in why. That is your unlock.
The work you do deserves to be seen and recognised, and you deserve to be seen for the value you bring and the way you enable the success of so many in your organisation.
I know your time is important so thanks for listening and being here - it means a lot.
I’ll be back in your ears soon.
