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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Kristine <keyword id="4678054" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="valenzuela" source="Orion">Valenzuela</keyword> was recently hired as an <keyword id="227238" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="executive-assistant" source="Orion">executive assistant</keyword> to Atlassian's head of engineering.</li><li>She said on a recent podcast that she'd had to prove her leadership skills throughout her career.</li></ul>Kristine Valenzuela became the executive assistant to Atlassian's head of engineering, Mike Tria, in August, after having spent 11 years working as an executive assistant and chief of staff in the aerospace sector and for other software-development companies. She <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=636d52e8d01396437710cfd4&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Ffeed%2Fupdate%2Furn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6975521491584970753%2F">recently described</a> the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/8-companies-analysts-say-53-billion-atlassian-could-buy-2022-8">$53 billion software company</a> as "an incredible place, unlike any other company I've experienced."But even so, while reflecting on her larger career, she told <keyword id="15549080" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="jessica-vann" source="Orion">Jessica Vann</keyword>, the CEO of <keyword id="15549081" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="maven-recruiting-group" source="Orion">Maven Recruiting Group</keyword>, on a <a href="https://www.mavenrec.com/reach/season-3-episode-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent episode</a> of the podcast "<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-dynamic-duo-behind-sara-blakely-founder-of-spanx/id1482859791?i=1000567853326" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reach</a>," her role is often overlooked or misunderstood, or boiled down to simply "fetching coffee." Making an executive's life easier or "just getting stuff done," Valenzuela said — "almost no one sees the skill that's involved in doing that every day." She also pointed the finger at HR departments for the bad rap EAs get. "Internally, not enough people are elevating our value within the leadership team," she said."Telescoping" your value beyond the executive whose day-to-day you manage, she said, is crucial to getting the recognition, salary, and opportunities you deserve as an assistant. In other words, she creates good PR around her role and responsibilities to get people to see her as a leader — here's how.<h2>She embraces a servant-leadership mentality</h2>Valenzuela said that a "<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/03/11/traditional-leadership-vs-servant-leadership/?sh=7f532626451e">servant leadership</a>" mindset — the philosophy where a leader is there to serve other people — is critical in her role. "It's all about approaching people with the mindset of, 'How can I help you?'" she told Vann. "The wrong way to approach it is to go in there and say, 'I need this, I need it now.'" She believes the key to effective servant leadership is providing context. "I always start with giving people proper perspective on what's going on," she said.Context can also be "the gateway to building your personal brand," Valenzuela added. "You're telling them that you know what's going on, you're explaining how all these different pieces of the business fit together," she said. In her experience, that's when people say, "She knows what she's talking about.""People start coming to me with lower-level problems, and then they start coming with bigger problems," she added.<h2>She makes her expertise known to others</h2>Sharing your broad range of knowledge across the business is another way to show your value as an executive assistant. Valenzuela recalled a time when a "very large personality" in her workplace came to her feeling panicked about a big meeting with senior executives where he felt out of his depth."I was like, you've got the finance guy. Integrate some finance numbers, that'll make him happy," she said of her conversation with him. "You've got the manufacturing guy, he's really big on precise data — so make sure if you're using data that pertains to his department that you get it directly from his office, because he does not want to see even a half a percentage point off of what that true number is."She said that a couple of days later, that colleague stopped by to thank her, saying that if it wasn't for her advice, he wouldn't have done so well. "I had to take that as a win," she said. "It was me knowing the context of what was going on, and the people involved, and the things they liked."<h2>She encourages her boss to advocate for her</h2>Valenzuela said that when she served as a chief of staff for another executive before Atlassian's Tria, she spoke with her boss about how he could best portray her position to other team members. It was his job to remind the team that she spoke on his behalf and was an extension of him."He needed to tell his direct reports, and anyone that he worked with on a regular basis, what the scope of my role was," she said.

3 ways an executive assistant at Atlassian proves her worth at work and shows her role is about more than just 'fetching coffee'

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3 ways an executive assistant at Atlassian proves her worth at work and shows her role is about more than just 'fetching coffee'

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