9 Things You Should Know if You Want to Be a Chief of Staff

Over my tenure as Chief of Staff, I have taken over 100 conversations with people interested in the Chief of Staff role. These conversations have brought me a lot of joy so I thought I’d distill what I’ve shared in these conversations with you here.?

My conversations are normally divided into two big “question” areas: 1) What does a Chief of staff do? 2) How can I be successful at being a Chief of Staff?

Let’s begin.

The “What Does a Chief of Staff Do?” Framework:

One thing I’ve learned in the conversations is that “Chief of Staff” is one of the most misunderstood roles. Over my time as Chief of Staff, and strengthened by these conversations, I have created a framework that breaks down the role into 3 key buckets:?

1) Business Operations: As Chief of Staff, you are responsible for ensuring that the team or company you are supporting is running efficiently and effectively week-to-week, month-to-month, and quarter-to-quarter. You are responsible for deciding what your leadership team talks about on a weekly basis, what you tell your staff on a monthly basis, and how you retro the previous quarter as well as plan for the next. Efforts you may lead include: Quarterly planning (e.g. OKRs/QBRs), Board Decks, Leadership Team meetings, and Staff All Hands. You are also in charge of key efforts related to internal communications, culture-building, and recruiting for your team. Think of yourself as the oil that ensures the engine (your team) runs smoothly.?

2) Strategic Initiatives: Strategic initiatives, or special projects, are either operational or business-related. Operational special projects include standing up new or fixing broken processes or operations within your team. Business-related strategic initiatives are those in which you own or temporarily support a key business need. I used “temporarily support” because the reality is that you will not have the capacity to own several strategic initiatives end-to-end. Your role will be to catalyze them. You will more than likely be identifying operational and business gaps, defining and validating a plan, and then handing that plan over to a full-time project owner.

3) Thought Partnership: As a thought partner to your executive, you are their go-to for feedback and brainstorming. You provide them with candid feedback on topics related to staff sentiments and their executive presence. You also serve as a brainstorming partner on key strategic efforts such as the plan and impacts of major organizational change. In this role as thought partner, you better understand your executive and thus are better prepared to ghost-write their internal memos, their critical emails to staff, and their strategic presentations.

While these are important in describing the role, they don’t contextualize the experience. In the next section, I’ve distilled the 9 key insights and pieces of advice I have found to be critical to the success of the Chief of Staff role.?

How To Be Successful as a Chief of Staff:

• EQ > IQ: Emotional intelligence is one of the most important, if not the most important, skills to have as a Chief of Staff. You are the voice and representation of the staff so relating, understanding, and empathizing with both senior leaders and staff members is key. While your work on analytical and strategic projects will be important, your role as a culture leader is most valued - you are uniquely positioned to define and shape your team’s culture.
• Delegate, delegate, delegate: You are going to get a lot thrown at you as Chief of Staff. You will likely be juggling 16 ongoing efforts while standing up 3 new projects in parallel. A key lesson I learned was that while you need to ensure the work gets done, you don’t need to do the work yourself. In this role, you have positional power which means that people will listen to you because your voice represents your executive. In order to be effective (and survive) in this role, it is critical that you get comfortable with delegating.?
• Find your people: As a Chief of Staff, you are on all the teams…but are also technically on none of them. In order to be effective in the role and utilize your positional power, it is key to find your people within the organization. These might be managers of teams, internal communications, people business partners, recruiters, or DEI representatives. These are your “go-to” people to complete the jobs asked of you. Schedule ongoing 1:1s to keep these individuals close.?
• Build trust with your executive: Originally I wanted to title this “Become best friends with your Executive” (thank you, President Barlett). While it may be impossible and impractical to become best friends with your executive, the heart of this advice is to get to know your executive well. This is critical because you are representing them in meetings, you are writing on their behalf, and you are giving them candid advice and feedback. Spend the first 90 days shadowing their meetings and understanding how they make decisions. Conduct a user manual review session with them to understand their working styles. Schedule regular and ongoing 1:1s to ensure you both are walking in sync.?
• Become a business operations expert: While strategic initiatives are important and interesting, your executive needs you to be outstanding at business operations. You are responsible for ensuring the business operates seamlessly. Get great at organization and facilitation as you will be leading your weekly leadership meetings, monthly staff meetings, and offsites. Learn how best to create and deliver annual visions, OKRs, quarterly business reviews, and board meeting content.?
• Redefine and confirm priorities often: Unlike project-based roles that typically have a few months to a few quarter horizons, the Chief of Staff horizon is much shorter. Your priorities will look different week-to-week, and maybe even day-to-day because of the changing needs of your executive and the business. As a result, it is important to redefine and confirm your priorities often. I recommend starting the week by discussing your priorities with your executive and making any adjustments based on updates they provide. Bonus points go to Chiefs of Staff that communicate those priorities regularly to internal stakeholders.?
• Maintain a low ego: Your core stakeholder is your team and in order for your team to be successful, a well-prepared executive needs to be in place. It is your job to ensure that the executive is prepared with strong prose, strategy, and operations. I often refer to myself as “Batwoman” in the Chief of Staff role as I am driving and supporting many important efforts but am often not receiving the credit. This is a reality of the job. As the oil of the engine, your work is critical but not always the shiniest or the most tangible. While it is not easy, it is critical to maintain a low ego in this role - reminding yourself of the core stakeholder you are supporting.?
• Lean into your strengths: No one Chief of Staff looks the same. Each Chief of Staff brings their own flavor to the role. If you are nervous about what you can offer in the role, my advice is to lean into your strengths. If are a wizard with data, find ways to make your decision-making and processes more data-driven. If you are skilled at writing, offer to write the executive communications for your executive. While you will certainly need a strong mix of skills for the role, lean into what you know you are great at as a starting place.?
• Make the most of your time: Most Chief of Staff roles are framed as a “tour of duty” aka they last between 18 to 24 months. Given the relatively short tenure of the role, my advice is to take advantage of your time as Chief of Staff - soaking up as much information and access as you can. If you are interested in meetings on your executive's calendar, ask to attend as an observer. Build connections with the wide variety of leaders you have access to in this role as they will be your champions after your Chief of Staff tour of duty.?

Interested in receiving Executive Coaching for the Chief of Staff role? Reach me here: https://www.aartibhatnagar.com/