Who is a Chief of Staff?

7 analogies from the past 7 months.

The Chief of Staff (CoS) role, although fairly recent is quickly gaining pertinence. The CoS is seldom clearly defined. You and your principal (in my case the CEO) aligned on a role definition and key strategic priorities on Day 1.

It helps to understand the expectations beforehand, but it’s necessary to be flexible, both early on, and as your role evolves. It’s more than likely, you both are discovering what it means together for you as a team.

1. The CoS conducts a symphony as the maestro. You direct the show with all it’s distinct artists to a unified script. Aligning the C-Suite, Presidents, E/SVPs to the CEO’s strategic vision is the job. It means, working closely with leaders across a global organization, understanding their strengths, weaknesses, leadership styles, pain-points, and challenges to set them up for collective success.
2. The CoS works as a design thinker and operator. A Chief of Staff who is adept at converting abstract ideas into smooth operations means that there are fewer fires for the CEO to extinguish. Driving company wide data dashboards, quarterly business reviews, performance management conversations etc. ensure timely and effective decisioning.
3. The CoS is a communicator linking the leadership team and the broader organization. You leverage town-halls, leadership off-sites, all-hands executive connects, the water-cooler and hallway chats to clearly and concisely articulate the CEO’s vision at all times to all stakeholders – both internal and external.
4. The CoS serves as an air traffic controller for the leader and the senior team. You have a bird’s eye view across the organization. You can anticipate bottle-necks and pitfalls early on to caution leaders to avoid dire downstream implications. You direct planes down safe routes and avoid impending crashes.
5. The CoS works as an integrator and connector of functional work streams that would otherwise remain siloed. Especially on key initiatives, you want to get teams collaborating cross-functionally from the get go. Leaders across finance, business, hr, sales, marketing, operations, and delivery etc. need to align to a common company goal and work towards a shared sense of purpose.
6. The CoS often plays a proxy and gatekeeper. Your job is to do as much of the principal’s job as possible. You are there to expand the principal’s hours in a day. This could include taking on several principal duties – all focused on making time, information, and decision processes more effective.
7. The CoS is as a true confidant and thought-partner. Perhaps this is the most important role, that of a trusted advisor. Your role solely exists to serve the organization at large leaving personal affiliations aside. No other role in the organization is designed to do this. CEOs need space to brainstorm freely, discuss options, and freedom to vent frustrations without igniting panic through the ranks. Effective advisors are not just yes-people; behind closed doors, they must be comfortable telling the CEO when they disagree. But in the end you both stand a united front. You are the objective truth teller when the leader needs to hear it.

Every day in this role has been a master-class in business, stakeholder management, and influence building. Thanks to Raj Sardana for being truly exceptional principal.