Administrative Professional Skills That Enable You To Work Smarter, Not Harder

Unlock Your Potential With The Linchpin Assistant Framework

My Approach

POWER Skills That Elevate Your Effectiveness

To rise to the top of your field, you need a strong suite of administrative assistant skills and the ability to extend beyond being simply transactional. You need the interpersonal skills that will help you become a trusted partner and advisor to your manager and a role model and leader to those around you.

I call these your POWER Skills. The (anything but) soft skills that allow you to be effective, not just efficient and allow you to show up as a Linchpin Assistant.

The Linchpin Model and the Assistant Competency Model are the foundation of my approach to administrative assistant skill development. I'll help you become a high-performing Administrative Professional that is able to:

  • Solve problems before they arise
  • Balance tight deadlines
  • Anticipate the needs and protect the time of your manager
  • Maintain mutually beneficial stakeholder relationships
  • Contribute to the strategic vision of your organisation
  • Confidently articulate how your actions drive outcomes and impacts for your team and company

When you work with me, you're taking the first step toward a happier, more productive and more rewarding career.

Liz Van Vliet Founder & Managing Director The Linchpin Assistant

You'll have the confidence to provide the level of support your manager

needs and expects.

To be the little hinge that swings

big doors!

Five Critical Elements

Linchpin Assistant Skills That Empower You To Become The Administrative Professional You Want To Be

My research and experience training and coaching assistants, as well as interviewing and engaging with the business leaders they support have convinced me there are FIVE elements that enable you to support you to show up as a linchpin. Developing insight and understanding in each of the five areas of The Linchpin Model® is a foundation element of my coaching and training.

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  • Knowing Yourself – My EA Career

    Self Insight

    Insight into your strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats that exist for you. Self-reflection on goals and aspirations. Your unique value proposition. The confidence and ability to blow your own trumpet.

  • Knowing your POWER executive assistant skills

    Your POWER Skills

    The Ten Power Skills for Linchpin Assistants®. Putting them into practice. Building confidence and competence. Understanding how and when to use them to advocate for your manager and for yourself to get things done.

  • Knowing Your Manager – Executive assistant skills

    Leader Insights

    What makes your manager tick. Deepening  your understanding and insight into the human being/s you support and how to leverage that knowledge and insight to protect their time and energy and enable them to be more effective.

  • Executive Assistant Skills – Knowing Your Job – My EA Career

    Your Role

    Improving your personal effectiveness and productivity and ensuring you are performing the functional aspects of your role at the highest level. Identifying and addressing skills gaps. Mapping your current skillset to the Global Skills Matrix.

  • Knowing your organisation – My EA Career

    Organisation Insights

    Who does what, why they do it, and why it's important. Insight and understanding of the formal and informal org structure, the key stakeholders and competitors. 

Elevate Your Effectiveness

Executive Assistant Skills - The EA Competency Model

The Road To Your Success Starts Here

The Assistant Competency Model categorises executive assistants and administrative assistants based on their functional and strategic competencies. Which zone an assistant sits in is determined by a set of characteristics like aptitude, development, mindset and experience as well as their confidence and capability in their Power Skills.

It doesn't matter where you sit in this model, with my coaching and training, you've got the ability to level up and become a linchpin.

Ten Power Skills for Linchpin Assistants®

  • Mastering Confident Communication

    so you can communicate with self-awareness and better advocate for and support your manager

  • Balancing Negotiating Outcomes

    so you can achieve outcomes that align with your manager's strategic vision without damaging relationships

  • Claiming Your Influence

    so you can leverage your situational  authority to become an effective leader and influencer bringing people onboard to support your requests and the goals of your manager

  • Managing Up Skilfully

    so you strengthen the partnership and collaboration you have with your manager as well as using these same skills to manage across and diagonally to manage key stakeholders

  • Navigating Difficult Conversations

    confidently engaging in and working through the complexities of these situations before they escalate and impact relationships for you or your manager

  • Revealing Your Leadership

    so you can motivate and inspire others to contribute to the strategic vision of your manager and your organisation

  • Giving And Getting Effective Feedback

    so you can grow and assist others to grow, embracing feedback as a mechanism for increasing your personal and professional effectiveness

  • Fostering Curiosity For Insights

    Using this to foster creativity in others, particularly your manager. Developing empathy about those around you
    and opening yourself up to new ideas and approaches

  • Building Strategic Thinking

    so you can see the bigger picture and anticipate what's ahead. Enabling you to be two steps ahead of your manager and be proactive rather than reactive.

  • Understanding EQ and Self Regulation

    Strengthening your emotional intelligence and the skills to ensure you stay in control of your emotions even when you're under stress and pressure

'What I know is that without developing your POWER Skills it's not possible to consistently occupy the Linchpin zone and be respected, compensated and valued for the contribution you make.'

Liz Van Vliet. Founder, The Linchpin Assistant

Liz Van Vliet, The Linchpin Assistant

Winning Outcomes

Administrative Assistant Skills That Give You The Competitive Edge

I Work With Talented Assistants Who:

Want to feel less reactive and enjoy their job more

Want to feel appreciated and valued

Seek increased responsibilities

Would like the confidence to be more authoritative and influential

Are very capable on the technical side of their role but need a soft skills boost to help them better support their manager

Are very capable technically but need extra Power Skills to help them support their executive

Want to show up as a leader and better contribute to their manager's goals and their organisation's vision.

Outcomes For Assistants:

A level of trust and confidence that was previously not possible

Clearer career goals and an agreed-upon pathway to achieve them

Better ability to advocate for yourself

Higher performance levels and an increased awareness of how to deliver more value

A more developed and mindful leadership style

Being a strategically effective linchpin in your organisation

Outcomes For Managers and Organisations:

A more agile, productive and responsive EA to support your strategic priorities

An EA that protects your time and makes quality decisions on your behalf, relieving the top-down burden you often face

An EA that's better equipped to overcome difficult situations and lead through influence

Stronger team and stakeholder engagement and collaboration

Full support from talented and dynamic executive assistants that add to the success of the organisation's endeavours

Client Love

Liz Is an inspiring and forward thinking leader who has strong and solid skills as a trainer and expertise in developing EAs ability to be effective through improving their communication and influencing skills.

Sonia Petersen

Senior EA to the Board, Stowe Australia

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Become the Linchpin Your Organisation Can't Do Without!

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Liz Van Vliet

Liz works with executive and administrative assistants to equip them with the skills and confidence they need to influence more effectively and to demonstrate the leadership and interpersonal skills to make them a linchpin to their manager and organisation.