Executives! Are You Being Guarded? Beware!

“Make sure whatever you send to the President goes through me first. If you want to speak to him on the phone or see him do the same. I have to protect him from getting bogged down with too much information and too many appointments.”

This is what managers, directors, and supervisors are told by a client’s executive secretary. If you have your secretary or assistant do the same, beware. Of course, you may he or she to manage your appointments, delete e-mail spam and messages of no value, and forward messages that should go to someone else. You may also want to have them respond to voice-mail messages to which they know the answer. You may even want them to put messages in a specific folder that require your specific action. These are all helpful to your personal productivity.

But if your management team knows they have to get through your Gatekeeper to have access to you, that means you don’t have an Open-Door policy. If you don’t have one, you might not know what’s going on in your company. Always know what’s going on! I can give you countless examples of executive and business owners who had to pay a heavy price because they didn’t.

Here’s another way to make sure you do – Make it a habit to ask this question on a regular basis – “Is there anything I should know about?” If you don’t ask, people may tell you what’s going on.