The Most Dangerous Compliment an EA Can Receive

This is for EAs who have been “trusted” for a long time and are starting to feel exposed.

There is a compliment Executive Assistants hear more than almost any other: trusted. It is usually meant warmly and often offered as reassurance. “You’re so trusted.” “I couldn’t do this without you.” “I only trust you with this.” In many organisations, being trusted is framed as the highest form of validation an EA can receive.

But trust is not the same thing as safety, and it is certainly not the same thing as power.

For EAs in particular, trust can be one of the most precarious positions to occupy. It brings access without authority, responsibility without protection, and proximity to risk without any real influence over how that risk is handled when something goes wrong. Most people only realise this once something shifts. By then, trust has quietly turned into exposure.

Trust and power are often spoken about as though they are interchangeable. They are not. Trust determines who is looped in early, who carries context, who absorbs complexity, and who fixes problems quietly. Power determines whose version of events becomes official, who is shielded when something fails, who is given grace during disruption, and who is actively defended when narratives start to shift.

Many EAs hold extraordinary levels of institutional trust while sitting outside the structures that distribute power. We are relied upon to keep things running smoothly, but are rarely positioned to shape how events are explained once they are over. This is not accidental. It is structural.

Trust feels like safety - until power moves.

This becomes most visible after a senior exit. The EA is still “trusted”, still asked to keep things steady, still holding context. But the room has changed. Meetings begin to happen without us. Decisions are referenced after the fact. Our proximity remains, but our influence has quietly gone. By the time roles are reviewed or responsibilities reshaped, the story has already been written - and the EA was never part of the rewrite.

In practice, trust often turns EAs into custodians of organisational memory. You remember why decisions were made, which compromises were intentional, and what was happening behind the scenes at the time. You hold context others no longer have, or no longer want. But institutional memory without authority is not an asset. It is a liability. When leadership changes, organisations rarely preserve context. They rewrite it. And the people who remember too much are not usually invited to help shape the new version.

Many EAs also function as emotional and operational shock absorbers. You soften difficult messages, intercept tension before it escalates, protect your executive from reputational fallout, and fix problems before anyone else notices they existed. Over time, the organisation stops experiencing the friction you are absorbing. The cost of that work becomes invisible. When no one feels the impact, no one feels urgency to protect the role that prevents it.

Shock absorbers are designed to take impact so others do not have to. They wear down gradually and invisibly. And when they fail, they are replaced rather than defended. This is one of the least acknowledged risks of being indispensable.

Trust also pulls EAs into volatile spaces. You are present during sensitive conversations. You see indecision, misalignment, and power struggles up close. You are often closely associated with leaders whose influence may be growing or quietly diminishing. But when outcomes are discussed later, you are rarely in the room. You do not get to frame intent, contextualise decisions, or clarify what actually happened. Proximity without narrative control is exposure, and exposure does not require wrongdoing. It only requires change.

Many EAs assume that neutrality will protect them. We stay out of politics, avoid conflict, and focus on supporting the role rather than aligning with any particular agenda. But neutrality does not exist in systems shaped by power. When power shifts, everyone is re-evaluated. Silence is not interpreted as objectivity; it is interpreted as alignment with the old order. You do not need to be political to be affected by politics. You simply need to be nearby when the ground moves.

There is a question most EAs do not ask until we are forced to, and by then it is often too late. If your executive left tomorrow, who would actively protect you? Not who likes you, and not who says they value EAs in principle. Who would advocate for you when budgets tighten, roles are redefined, or narratives are rewritten? Who would explain your value when the person you were closest to is no longer there to do it?

Most EAs only start thinking about this after a change has already happened. By that point, the window to reposition has usually closed.