How to Partner with Your Exec

Want a stronger relationship with your executive? Mia Lane, Manager, Executive & Administration at UKG, shares her experience with genuine partnership and the strategies she finds most effective for maintaining strong communication and alignment.

Recorded at EA Ignite Spring 2024 and produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals - ASAP. Learn more and submit a listener question at asaporg.com/podcast.

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Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I Leah Warwick, and you're listening to "The Admin Edge." This episode was recorded at EA Ignite Spring 2024, in Nashville, with Katie Hendrickson interviewing guest Mia Lane, Manager, Executive and Administration at UKG. Mia was also a panelist at this event on the state of the profession and the keys to a strong executive partnership. Please enjoy this conversation with Katie and Mia.

00:00:37                     

Katie Hendrickson: Hi, I'm Katie Hendrickson, ASAP Advisory Board Member, and my guest today is Mia Lane. Mia is a Panelist on the Executive Partnership at the State of the Profession panels here at EA Ignite, and Chair of the EA Ignite Committee on the ASAP Advisory Board. Welcome to the podcast, Mia.

Mia Lane: Hello, Katie. Thank you for having me today.

Katie Hendrickson: Yeah, wonderful to have you. So, why don't you just go ahead and get started with telling our listeners about how you are, why you're here, and why this topic is important to you.

00:01:09                     

Mia Lane: Okay. Once again, my name is Mia Lane. I have been in the executive admin profession for 30 years, and I also currently manage a team of admins. That's been over the past year and a half. I am very passionate about this career, hence why I've been in it for so long. This topic does resonate with me because I feel like I do have a genuine partnership with my executive, Scott Howitt. We've worked over five years together over a couple of different companies, and then he is more than just an executive. He's also a mentor.

00:01:46

He values my growth and my professional development. He stretches me beyond any means necessary. Just recently, within the last year and a half, he promoted me into management. 

Katie Hendrickson: Wow, that's wonderful.

Mia Lane: Thank you.

Katie Hendrickson: So one of the questions that I really wanted to ask you, Mia, is: What strategies have you found most effective for maintaining an open and efficient communication with your executive?

Mia Lane: Well, we do have regular check-ins. Depending on his schedule, they can be daily for a quick five or ten minutes, or they can be twice a week. At that time, we go over the calendar. We go over any last-minute priorities that may have come up, and we just kind of reset for the entire day. That has really helped us to just kind of stay aligned with each other.

Katie Hendrickson: That's great. I know for myself and my last executive, we made time to have three check-ins a week. One was focused on strategy, kind of putting on a chief-of-staff hat. One was focused on a task list, so more of a project management hat, if you will, and then our third one was strictly focused on the calendar, so kind of that EA hat.

00:03:02

I agree. You have to have those regular check-ins to ensure that you're both on the same page. 

Mia Lane: Right. And when you're supporting especially a higher-level executive in the C-suite, every conversation we have we touch on calendar, because it's a revolving door and I think it changes on a steady basis.

Katie Hendrickson: So true. So, speaking about calendaring, I'm wondering if you can share with us any tips that you have on how to really anticipate the needs of your executive, and stay ahead of their schedule and their priorities?

Mia Lane: Sure. When it does come to calendaring, several people reach out to just get on the calendar. When they do so, it's my responsibility to ask additional questions. What is the agenda? Is there a deliverable that needs to be met? Is there a decision that needs to be made? These questions allow me to know if I need to confirm that appointment and schedule, or if I need to pivot it to one of his direct reports to start the process at that time.

00:04:05                     

Katie Hendrickson: Yeah, I totally agree. I know that one of the things that my executive and I kind of put in place was having specific topics on specific days to ensure that she wasn't having to switch hats all the time, but it was also – I agree with you – does my executive have to be in this meeting, or do they simply need to be informed about the outcome of the meeting?

Mia Lane: Exactly. And that happens so often, where people will just want to immediately get in front of the executive, but they're really not prepared to be in front of them. As you know, when you're dealing with executives, their time is so valuable and so limited. Let's not even consider factoring in travel on a regular basis.

00:04:48

Then a part of my job is making sure that he has downtime to be able to go through emails, so he's not steadily working 24/7, even though the role is an on-call role for 24/7. We want him to maybe be able to have some downtime by himself or with his family. 

Katie Hendrickson: I know it's really important to have that relationship and it has to be built on trust, so how do you handle confidential information and really some sensitive situations that come across in our roles, in order to maintain trust with your executive?

Mia Lane: Right. Once you've been doing this for as long as you have, it's second nature that when things are shared with you, everything is within confidence. That allows your executive to just not withhold anything from you, which you knowing everything that's going on in his day-to-day, you're able to strategically plan things around that, no matter what the situation is.

00:05:50

You do have people that will come to you, trying to pry and get information, but it's funny because you can say so much without saying anything at all. 

Katie Hendrickson: Can you give us an example of that?

Mia Lane: There's certain looks. You can just look at someone like… I'm really quick to say, "What was it that you said again? I just want to reiterate. What was the question? Because I'm not really sure that I understood it." That sometimes will allow people to rethink: Should I have asked that question? Was it any of my business?

Katie Hendrickson: A little reverse psychology there. I like it.

Mia Lane: Exactly.

Katie Hendrickson: I like it. And I can really feel that with you. I supported an executive who had an assistant before me who had broken confidence on multiple occasions. She told me the first day, "It's nothing against you. We're just going to have to build trust." And we did and we got to a point where, little by little, she gave me more, gave me more, to the point where all of a sudden I was helping with the decision-making. I was responding to emails as her because I had built that relationship and trust with her.

00:07:00                     

Mia Lane: Right. One thing that I do constantly display is the fact that I am a reflection of who I support. My executive knows that I do have his best interest. He will tell everyone, "I trust Mia." I even have access to his personal calendar, just so I can make sure that his personal and his professional life align, because it is an ongoing responsibility when you're in an executive position.

Katie Hendrickson: So true. I know that it can be difficult switching from one executive to another as our careers advance. What have you learned about adapting to different management styles, and how do you adjust your approach to really best support each individual type of executive?

00:07:49                     

Mia Lane: Yeah, it can get kind of crazy, especially at one point in my career I was supporting four different executives.

Katie Hendrickson: Wow, at the same time?

Mia Lane: Yes, in four different areas of the company. Initially, you have to sit down and have a conversation. You want to get to know them on a personal level and a business level so you can kind of anticipate what situation that you're dealing with, but it's all in putting on various hats to be able to just: Okay, I'm dealing with someone who's more structured this time. This time I'm dealing with someone who is more lax, but more happy-going.

It's a skill and it doesn't happen overnight. I would say that before I actually feel comfortable with knowing my executive, at first, I take copious notes to be able to just kind of remind myself of whatever situation we're in. 

00:08:42

I'd say it's a good six months before I'm comfortable with knowing my executive that I'm dealing with. The days of supporting four are long gone, and I'm grateful that I'm in a position now that I just have one C-suite executive. And then, again, like I said, I manage a team. I have five EAs on my team. 

Katie Hendrickson: Wow. Speaking about how it takes up to six months with a new executive, that kind of actually leads into a listener question that we have. It's from an administrative professional named Tammy. She wrote in and asked: "How do you help your bosses help you to help them? Basically, if you are new to the position and your bosses are, too, then how do you know how to support them?

Mia Lane: I would say, first off, you need to be your authentic self. You know the role. You may be new to the company, you may be new to your executive, but the only way that you're going to get past that is to be confident in your decisions, confident in your communication.

00:09:50

I'm very big on motivating and empowering people to be the best that they can, because I believe our roles – while we are behind the scenes, we are the backbone to what goes on, and these executives are successful because of what we do. Own it. Put your chin up, put your shoulders back, and just be confident. I think that's probably most important, in my eyes: knowing your worth, knowing what you bring to the table, and feeling good about it. 

When you display that type of demeanor, people look at you based on the way that you act. So, if they can tell that you're uncomfortable, you may deal with some people that want to kind of tell you what to do when you're the one who should be in control. 

00:10:46

So you have to know that you know what you're doing, and you have to be comfortable letting people know that you know what you're doing. 

Katie Hendrickson: Well, I think that's what the beauty of the administrative profession is. It really doesn't matter what industry we go into. What matters is that we know how to do the admin role. I personally have just made a shift from nonprofit higher education to for-profit transport logistics. And guess what? I'm still doing the same stuff.

Mia Lane: Exactly, just learning a new industry. And that is the advantage to being in our type of role. We can take our skillset and go across any industry. We just learn where we are at that given time.

Katie Hendrickson: Well, thanks again for joining us on "The Admin Edge" podcast, Mia. Where can our listeners find you online?

Mia Lane: I pretty much live on LinkedIn, just by my name, Mia Lane. I work at UKG. I would welcome the opportunity to connect with anyone in our community.

00:11:51                     

Katie Hendrickson: Wonderful. Thank you again so much, Mia.

Mia Lane: Thank you for having me, Katie.

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Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to "The Admin Edge," produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals. Original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production at EA Ignite by 5Tool Productions. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a nice review and five stars wherever you listen to podcasts, and subscribe. If you'd like to submit a listener question, you can do so on our website at asaporg.com/podcast.