By Karen Porter

Many of the biggest “challenges” administrative professionals face at work can be traced back to miscommunication or lack of communication. Often these communication issues are between the assistant and her manager — two people whose thoughts and actions should be in synch because essentially they operate as a team, despite in actuality being a direct report and her manager (or executive).

As an administrative assistant or executive assistant, you cannot be at the top of your game and effective if you don’t communicate well with your manager. Good communication takes initiative and deliberate thought and action — and practice. The results are worth it: Two biggies are efficient work performance and met expectations by all involved. Without good communication, you’ll encounter inefficiency, disappointment (by you and your manager), and higher stress levels. You may appear to have poor performance even if you were performing okay. For instance, consider these two scenarios which could happen to you (and try the fixes):

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