What Makes a Good Secretary?

Is it a dying profession?

Or is there a shortage?

Is it really demeaning?

“SUDDENLY, A New Shortage of Secretaries”​—so said Business Week of August 8, 1977. Commenting on the relative scarcity of women available for such work, this journal adds: “Executives everywhere stress that the lack of skills​—in shorthand, typing, and just plain use of language—​ranks with the lack of available bodies in creating the secretarial shortage. . . . Good typing and shorthand have become such rare skills.”

Contributing to the shortage of female secretaries are feminist attitudes and government pressures on companies to give “equal opportunity.” The term “secretary” has become a “dirty word” to some women. Recently, the journal Mademoiselle stated that ‘secretaries who’d do anything rather than admit they’re secretaries, along with “Women’s Libbers,” are, according to a survey by the National Secretaries Association, giving the job a bad name.’

What is it that makes a secretary truly valuable? It goes beyond her very important typing and shorthand skills. Many of the qualities needed are those that apply to any job or responsibility in life.

Keeping Confidences

For example, the secretary needs to be one who can be trusted with confidential information. The word “secretary” comes from a Latin word meaning “confidant,” and one of the original meanings of the English word is “one entrusted with the secrets or confidences of a superior.” The secretary must prove herself worthy of being entrusted with those secrets, and this kind of secretary-executive relationship can make her job very fulfilling.

The head of a leading United States firm specializing in locating people for management positions, when asked what quality was vital for a woman working as an executive secretary, replied: “She must be confidential. She carries many of the company secrets, and unless she is careful, without even knowing it she can let something slip​—there are some in the office who will deliberately try to ‘pick her brains.’”

Also, a letter of recommendation written by the president of a company for his former secretary stated: “These are a few of the many traits that make [this woman] exceptional. However, I was particularly impressed with another that I considered the most important of all; she never gossiped nor talked about company business. This alone put her a cut above the average secretary.”

Helpful, Willing and Punctual

Further, the secretary’s role is one of helping kind. McCall’s, March 1976, said: “The job of secretary is primarily a helping job: a supporting rather than a starring role . . . to save her boss’s time and energy by relieving him or her of mechanics and detail and by protecting him from interruption​—in so doing, to increase his productivity at more creative levels.” The secretary’s attitude toward this “helping” role​—realizing that by handling the little hassles and details she can contribute toward her executive’s being more productive—​makes these minor and sometimes rather boring aspects of her job take on more meaning.

By demonstrating willingness and ability in handling detail work, a secretary proves herself capable of assuming greater responsibilities. As an example, an executive secretary may compose letters and memos for her executive once she becomes aware of his way of thinking, and in many companies special jobs are turned over to the secretaries for their own handling.

The skilled secretary should show a willingness to work, even working uncomplainingly extra hours when the situation calls for it. Being punctual, not taking extra-long lunch hours, being clean and neat, and avoiding undue absenteeism should normally be taken for granted, but today these qualities are hard to find and are highly prized.

Recognition for Good Work

Each of us likes to be recognized for doing a good job. But at a seminar for Executive Secretaries​—Administrative Assistants, one of the major complaints on the part of those attending was that there was not enough appreciation and recognition of their work.

There does, however, seem to be a gradual change in regard to this lack. As U.S. News & World Report, June 27, 1977, said: “Despite their complaints, most secretaries will declare they like their jobs and feel their work is important​—even crucial.” A $15,000-a-year secretary quoted in this article “no longer describes herself as ‘just a secretary’ to new acquaintances. ‘My opinion changed,’ she says, ‘when I realized that if you take all the secretaries out of the building, they would have a [hard] time running it.’”

Recognition of and reward for good work is shown in the trend toward higher salaries for secretaries. A Federal Government survey of private-sector wages showed top-rated secretaries earning an average of $12,342 a year​—slightly less than a beginning chemist—​and these wages go as high as $20,000 annually. Often another benefit is company-paid, company-time attendance at schools and seminars, not just in the secretarial field, but in management, decision-making, people-orientation, and so forth.

It was at one of these seminars (mentioned earlier) that the consultant brought an interesting aspect of praise or recognition to the attention of those in the audience. After asking them to make a list of all the recognition they had received within the past month, she asked them to make a list of all the times they had given words of praise to their executives. There was a rather stunned silence. “Your executive is in a position where very few people will offer him criticism​—or praise. You, as his assistant, can offer him the much-needed, sincere recognition of his best efforts and achievements.”

Christian Qualities and Morality

One who is a true Christian has particular qualities to offer as a secretary, qualities that mean much: patience, honesty, truthfulness, humility, industriousness, peacefulness, kindness, self-control. (Eph. 4:25; Col. 3:23; Gal. 5:22, 23; Heb. 13:18; 1 Pet. 5:5, 6) These Christian qualities will aid her to get along with the many people she must deal with, as well as to adapt herself to her executive’s needs and to put his business interests ahead of hers.

A true Christian woman, however, would want to be cautious in her relationship with her executive. U.S. News & World Report said that secretaries “complain . . . of suffering the sexual advances of their superiors.” Although many executives may not be in this category, in any relationship in which the two work closely together with respect for and trust in each other (as in an ideal secretary-executive situation) care must be exercised, for Christian principles of morality must always be followed. In fact, if in all her actions the secretary conducts herself in line with God’s Scriptural guidelines, this in itself is usually a deterrent to an executive’s even thinking in this direction.

So, then, the skilled secretary has a profession that can bring satisfaction and job stability and security, while making a real contribution to the business world.

[Box on page 24]

AN INDICATION of growing appreciation of the role of the secretary is that Secretaries Week, April 23-29, is officially acknowledged by Federal, State and Municipal governments of America. The purpose is to bring recognition to secretaries for their vital role in business, industry, education, government and professions.