Being the person everyone turns to feels good… Right up until it doesn’t. When you’re supporting multiple executives with different personalities and competing demands, in an environment where processes and technologies keep shifting, the gap between ‘helpful’ and ‘overwhelmed’ can close faster than you’d expect.
AI can absorb some of that load now but the human layer isn’t going anywhere. What needs to change is how you structure your role so you can keep working at your best without becoming the single point of failure for everything.
Professor Sharon Parker’s SMART work model offers a practical framework for doing exactly that. Here’s how each element applies:
Stimulating work
This is about task variety, skill development and being enabled to solve meaningful problems. You may already have plenty of variety but are you supported to build better organisational systems? Ones that don’t need your personal intervention every time? And are you encouraged to attend professional development and conferences?
- EA tip: Push for these opportunities. They’re investments in your growth and the organisation’s efficiency.
Mastery
Mastery means understanding your responsibilities clearly and knowing where the boundary lines sit. Being helpful is a strength but it becomes a problem when it creates dependence. If you’re repeatedly answering the same questions, that’s a signal to build a system that helps people find answers themselves. Think auto-responders, knowledge hubs and self-service tools.
- EA tip: Do you give or get feedback about what could work better? If not, that’s worth addressing too.
Autonomy
Autonomy is about having enough control over when and how you do your work. That means being able to work in the way that suits you best, without unnecessary interruption. That control directly affects motivation, focus and how well you manage pressure.
- EA tip: If you’re constantly interrupted or micromanaged, an honest conversation about working methods is overdue.
Relational
This is where EAs tend to excel. The ability to connect at a human level (being personable, cooperative and collaborative) makes you easy to work with and builds trust quickly. The important caveat is that it needs to run both ways.
- EA tip: Feeling genuinely valued and respected isn’t optional. It’s foundational to sustainable performance.
Tolerable demands
This is the hardest element to define – and the most important to get right. What matters is whether you consider your workload manageable; not just occasionally, but consistently. Repeated excessive overtime or conflicting demands from multiple executives is a reliable path to chronic stress and an eventual drop in performance.
- EA tip: A useful test is asking yourself if you’re regularly finishing the day with enough energy left for the rest of your life.
Putting it together
A quick self-assessment across the five elements is a useful starting point. Are you being stretched intellectually? Do you have clear boundaries? Can you control your working methods? Do you feel genuinely valued? Is your workload sustainable?
The goal isn’t to become less helpful. It’s to be helpful in ways that don’t deplete you. When the structure of your role supports you properly, you stay effective, your executives get better support and the organisation runs more smoothly.
If saving the day has become an unspoken expectation rather than an occasional necessity, the SMART model is a practical place to start rewriting that arrangement.
