📢 The Call Is Coming From Inside the Profession

Hi Friends,

This week’s issue might ruffle a few feathers, but it’s coming from a place of honesty and care.

Over the years, I’ve witnessed something surprising: some of the toughest moments in my EA career didn’t come from execs, impossible timelines, or overflowing inboxes, they came from other EAs.

Not because anyone was trying to be cruel, but because sometimes fear shows up as silence, or skepticism… Or a subtle kind of gatekeeping that makes someone feel like they’re “doing it wrong” just for trying something new.

It’s not the easiest thing to talk about, but I think we need to. Because if we want the profession to grow, we have to grow with it, and with each other.

This issue is about what happens when support turns into comparison, and what we can do to shift that dynamic.

As always, take what you need, leave what doesn’t fit, and share with a fellow EA who might need this reminder too.

With love, and lots of coffee ☕
Chrissy

A private Slack space for Executive Assistants, Chiefs of Staff, and office ops pros who run the show, and want a community that gets it.

It’s not a networking group. It’s a brain trust.
Inside, you’ll find:

🧠 Peer-led problem solving
📎 Templates and tools that actually get used
💬 Real talk (not performative LinkedIn fluff)

This space is for the ones who don’t just get it done, they get it done better.

👉 Apply to join The Inner Office

Here’s the truth… Some of the biggest blockers to EA growth aren’t coming from the top, they’re coming from the inside… from each other.

Sometimes it looks like a subtle eye-roll when someone tries something new.
Sometimes it’s not sharing a resource because “they should figure it out like I did.”
Sometimes it’s questioning someone’s role, style, or title because it doesn’t fit an old-school mold.

It’s not always malicious! In fact, it’s usually coming from fear. Fear of becoming irrelevant, fear of change, fear that there’s only room for one of us at the table.

But here’s the problem:
That quiet gatekeeping keeps us small. It makes people afraid to try, to build, to speak up, and the profession doesn’t move forward if we’re too busy policing each other from the inside.

✅ Sharing resources without hesitation
👏 Celebrating someone’s win without comparison
🫶 Helping the new EA without making them prove themselves first

There’s no one way to be a great EA, whether you're deep in ops, running point on culture and events, or holding a million moving pieces together behind the scenes. When we show up for each other, we don’t just build stronger teams, we build a stronger profession. 💼

Because culture isn’t just something we inherit, it’s something we co-create. Every 🙄 eye-roll, every 💬 side comment, every 🤐 withheld tip… it adds up.

We’re in a role that often goes unseen. People don’t always understand what we do, they just assume it’s easy. That anyone could do it…But we know better!

EAs anticipate, adapt, and absorb pressure no one else even notices, and when we support each other, we reinforce the value of what we all do.

When we gatekeep, we shrink what’s possible, but when we share, we expand the role, for everyone.

You want more recognition?
More trust?
A clearer path forward?
It starts with how we treat the people sitting next to us (virtually or otherwise).

We don’t have to be besties, but we do have to stop holding each other back.

We’ve all been there.

The eye-roll.
The “they’re doing too much” moment.
The silent judgment when another EA tries something different.

It doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human.

But if we want culture to change, we have to be willing to ask: 🪞 Could I be contributing to the problem?

This week, we created something just for that: a short, private self-audit to check in on how you’re showing up in our EA community.

It’s not a test, no scores… Just reflection.

👉 Take the “Culture Audit: You Edition” quiz
Because growth starts when we stop pointing fingers, and pick up the mirror..

A little funky, a little aspirational, this week’s track is for anyone doing the work to grow, lead, and reset. Keep doing the inner work, keep dancing through it. 💃