One way to avoid this situation is for the boss and assistant-to to agree that within the boundaries of the assistant-to job there is a call for personal services but that there is a great deal more to it than that.
There can be an optimal mix between general staff work and personal operations.
One assistant-to who was interviewed had about the best learning experience there is.
His boss gave him some highly important staff work to do, yet he also included the assistant-to in most of the social functions in which he, the boss, was involved.
The assistant-to learned how to function effectively as a staff man and also acquired some great lessons in social interaction and decorum.
Other executives saw this assistant-to at parties helping the boss to entertain, but they also saw the assistant-to as a working staff officer in the office.
Thus he was not categorized as a glorified bartender, nor as simply a junior staff member.
The assistant-to said that this combined social-staff experience and exposure was the major force which assisted in his career development.
Executives fail to distinguish between long-range planning and current administration.
Assistants-to are used almost exclusively on new and special projects.
Thus they fail to relieve their chiefs of routine tasks.
The subject of using assistants-to to relieve executives of administrative burdens, particularly those of a routine nature, has been pretty thoroughly treated.
However, occasionally an assistant-to is used for the wrong sort of relief; he is the one who is given the long-range work and the boss is still stuck with the routine functions.
The disadvantage for the assistant-to, under normal circumstances, is that he is given work that he is ill-prepared to conceptualize and develop.
Note that this statement is qualified by under normal circumstances: If the assistant-to is being readied to take his chiefs job because of impending retirement or transfer, this sort of function offers definite advantages.
A key executive is elevated to his status with appropriate emoluments because he has the potential to deal in long-term, horizon-type planning and projects.
For him to delegate these duties to someone else is an inexcusable breach of the obligations he accepted by virtue of his position.
The assistant-to should certainly be able to help the boss with his long-range projects, but they should not become the sole property of the assistant-to.
Assistants-to are allowed, or even directed, to criticize and to report on the work of their chiefs immediate subordinates.
These men are seniors to the assistant-to in status.
Such action tends to destroy the assistant-to relations with the subordinates and, hence, his usefulness to the boss.
Criticism is one of the chief inalienable responsibilities.
The relationship between an executive's subordinates and the assistant-to are bound to be tenuous.
To make the best of this situation, both parties need to strive for honesty and cooperation.
Subordinates who refuse to cooperate with the assistant-to in the completion of his duties invite the suspicion of the assistant-to and his reports to the boss will reflect this.
The converse is true also.
Subordinates who are senior to the assistant-to cannot simply dismiss him as a junior with whom they cannot be bothered.
At the same time, the assistant-to should not believe he has some sort of divine right by virtue of his proximity to the boss which gives him the prerogative to demand instead of ask.
Recognition of the rights, the status, and the requirements for job fulfillment of both parties can greatly help the chief.
But in the final analysis, it is the boss who must criticize.
This he cannot delegate unless he is willing to bring about a schism between his subordinates and his assistant-to.