All transcript: Strategic Thinking Is a Skill — And Here’s How You Train It For EAs
How does an EA learn to think strategically?
Welcome back to the show - today we’re getting into something I don’t hear explored enough - about strategic thinking
And I know… that word gets thrown around constantly.
Be more strategic.
Add strategic value.
Operate strategically.
I completely understand why some executive assistants are tired of hearing it.
I did aan earlier episode on that you can find it in the back catalogue if you’re curious
But here’s the part that matters and why I think we need to keep talking about it.
Strategic thinking isn’t a personality trait.
It’s not something you either “have” or don’t have.
And it’s not about being involved in corporate strategy sessions.
It’s a skill.
And like any skill, it can be trained.
A lot of the questions I get from EAs sound like this:
“How do I become more strategic as an executive assistant?”
“What does strategic support actually look like?”
“Why am I good at my job but still not seen as operating at a higher level?”
“How do I add strategic value as an EA?”
Those are real questions.
And they’re important ones.
Because what many people call “strategic” is actually - exposure.
Some EAs developed higher-level thinking because of proximity. They worked alongside commercially sharp leaders early in their career. They saw how decisions were made. They were exposed to trade-offs, financial pressure, stakeholder tension.
They absorbed it by being in the room.
Other EAs were placed into heavily transactional environments. Narrow job descriptions. Limited context. Performance conversations focused on accuracy and speed.
That’s not a capability gap.
That’s a context gap.
And if nobody has ever broken down what strategic thinking actually involves, it’s very hard to build it deliberately.
So let’s break it down.
When I talk about thinking and working strategically as an EA, I’m usually referring to a handful of core capabilities.
Commercial literacy.
Not in the sense that you need to become a finance expert. But understanding what drives revenue, cost, risk and reputation in your organisation. Understanding industry pressure. Knowing what the board is focused on. Knowing what customers care about.
Without that context, prioritisation becomes guesswork.
Then there’s priority hierarchy mapping.
Not just what’s urgent.
What actually matters.
What ladders up to organisational objectives.
What is politically loud but strategically low.
What is quietly critical.
If everything is treated equally, you can’t operate at a higher level.
There’s consequence thinking.
If we move forward with this, what does it create?
If we delay it, what’s the ripple effect?
If we say yes here, what are we saying no to somewhere else?
That kind of thinking protects decision quality.
Then there’s pattern recognition.
Noticing tension before it escalates.
Seeing cycles in workload.
Connecting dots across stakeholders.
That’s not magic intuition. It’s trained observation over time.
And finally, impact language.
Being able to articulate not just what you did, but what changed because you did it.
That shift alone changes how your contribution is perceived.
Now the important part.
None of that develops automatically.
You can’t just hope you’ll absorb it over time.
So what does deliberate training look like?
It looks like reviewing decisions after they’re made and asking what you’d do differently.
It looks like mapping executive objectives quarterly and asking how your work supports them directly.
It looks like translating routine tasks into business outcomes on paper.
It looks like practising escalation judgement — when to handle something, when to raise it, when to challenge it.
It looks like turning one-to-ones into thinking sessions, not just reporting sessions.
This is the work I specialise in.
Helping executive assistants think and operate at that level.
To support that, I built a free private audio series called The EA Compass.
If you haven’t already found it, I’ll link it in the show notes.
It’s short. It’s structured. It’s designed to help you zoom out and recalibrate how you approach your role — without overwhelming you. Every episode is under 10 minutes for that reason.
And if you want to go deeper, inside The Elite EA Academy we build these capabilities properly. Slowly. Practically. In context. I love going deep into this over time.
Because in a landscape that keeps shifting, the real edge isn’t speed.
It’s discernment.
Its as much what we DONT do as we DO do.
Strategic thinking isn’t something you either possess or don’t.
It’s something you practise.
And I hope this episode has given you some space to pause and reflect on your own experience as an EA — whatever stage of your career you’re in.
What exposure have you had?
Where have you absorbed thinking accidentally?
Where might you need to build it deliberately?
There’s no shame in realising you weren’t shown something.
But there is power in deciding to develop it.
If you’re an EA who’s already nailing this - your opporutnity is to pay it forward and help someone else in your team. This is how meaningful change happens.
If you know someone who needs to hear this conversation please consider sharing it and if you’re really enjoying the show your review wold be so appreciated.
Thanks for being here - I appreciate you . You can find all the resources I talked about in the show notes. See you in a fortnight.
