Stuck in Your Admin Pro Role? Four Steps Toward Advancing Your Career

As an administrative assistant, you’re not just the boss’ right hand. You’re the pivot point for information in your company. That’s a lot of responsibility, but also a great chance to learn the business from top to bottom, especially if your aim is a leadership role.

But what happens if you get stuck in your current job, and your boss seems to be holding you back, even though they often praise your work?

Two factors could be happening here — one malicious, the other entirely human.

If your boss is “breadcrumbing” you, just stringing you along with vague promises, then you’re being consciously manipulated and need to handle that accordingly.

But perhaps your boss simply believes you’re too good to let get away. Here, facts and data are vital — but so are tact and diplomacy.

These four actions will help present your case for career development without coming across as aggressive, demanding or ungrateful. As you apply them, though, keep the focus on the future.

You’ve Learned Your Lessons — Now It’s Time to Graduate

You want your boss thinking what a great asset you could be in a position of increased responsibility — not about how your insights and learned experience make you such a good assistant that they want to keep you in that role forever.

1. Talk about specific leadership lessons you’ve learned from your boss.

   Specificity is vital here; otherwise, you’ll just sound sycophantic, and that always comes off as insincere.

   Instead of something generic and cliched, like “I’ve learned so much from you,” think of a specific situation, describe the lesson learned from how your boss handled it, and move quickly to how you would apply that lesson as your career develops.

2. Stress specific hard skills you’ve gained from your administrative work.

   Relate those skills to an area where you’d like to have a bigger role. Then offer specifics about how you could apply that knowledge if your career is allowed to progress.

   This will demonstrate that you can visualize the big picture — your company’s goals, strategies, tactics and operations — and that you want to take a greater role in helping to achieve them. It’s also an implicit way of helping your boss realize that you’re a valuable asset to be retained, not lost to a competitor.

3. Describe specific actions you’ve taken (or can take) to ease a transition.

   Change is never easy, and you have a responsibility to make it as smooth as possible from your end. This also shows consideration for your boss and the organization as a whole.

   Ideally, you should be cross-training and sharing knowledge already, so that if something happens to you, other people can pick up the slack because you’ve trained them on the routines and procedures of your job. Lay out what you’ve done and don’t be afraid to recommend a successor you’ve identified over the course of your knowledge-sharing. If you haven’t, start doing those things now before asking for a new role.

4. Throughout these discussions, stress the positives.

   For you, that’s developing your career in a way that keeps you engaged and productive. For the boss, it’s having a motivated person who wants to move into a leadership role and shares the company’s goals.

If you’ve built a trusting, solid relationship with the boss, it’s natural that they might be hurt if you don’t want to continue in your assistant role. Avoid any statements that might be construed as not liking your work or that boss-assistant relationship. And, again, stress that you would rather stay than go somewhere else.

Want to learn more? Check out Leadership Skills for Administrative Professionals

After you’ve made your case, stop talking. Silence provides needed space for thoughtful consideration — if you can maintain it. Resist the urge to soften your position by making concessions or backing down entirely, just to fill the silence if your boss doesn’t respond right away.

Ideally, your boss will consider your case and work with you on a progression plan. This should be specific. There should be a role, or a short list of possible roles, for you to progress into. There should be a time frame, if not a hard deadline, for that to happen. And there should be a plan for knowledge transfer, training and succession.

If the answer is “no,” for whatever reason, don’t argue — and don’t give notice on the spot. Simply say, “I understand. Thank you for hearing me out,” and keep performing at a high standard while you begin to explore your options. You never know — something might open up unexpectedly, and you don’t want to burn bridges.

And if the answer is “Let me think about it,” ask for a specific time to follow up. It could be that they really do want to consider your position — or that they’re just trying to delay in hopes you’ll forget about it. A specific follow-up interval gives them time to think — and shows you’re serious about advancement.