Is the Chief of Staff role right for you?
In recent years, the Chief of Staff Position has taken off. Companies are seeing the value in this strategic & executionary thought partner for their top leaders. Companies like T-Mobile, Microsoft, Oracle, LinkedIn, Amazon, and more are building the Chief of Staff role into their organizational structure for their most senior leaders, and often the same role exists for other company leaders but may be titled “Business Operations Manager,” or something similar.
Supporting a Senior Leader
The Chief of Staff (CoS) role is usually a dynamic, fast-paced job that comes with high expectations. You are working with the leader of a business: someone responsible for their company or organization succeeding or failing. The leader could have anywhere from a handful to several thousand employees working on their team, and most likely a board or investor team who they are reporting their business to consistently. Because you are supporting the leader of an organization, the CoS role is often less visible, and can come with less recognition. The ability to get work done behind the scenes for the leader that you support is critical.
Learn more about the CoS role HERE.
You are a Generalist Leader
As a Chief of Staff, you are supporting your leader’s initiatives in any way you can. There are two big things that draw many people to the CoS role and they are connected: 1) the ability to have a huge breadth of work rather than work in one specialized field, and 2) the ability to see and learn how a business is run from the top of an organization. If you enjoy working on a wide variety of things, with priorities that are changing quickly, this is a great role for you.
Success in the Role
Finally, it’s important to point out a few character traits and skills that lead to success in the CoS role. As mentioned above, the ability to work with less recognition and behind the scenes is a must. Other things that will lead to success in the CoS role include highly motivated and driven, very organized, strong communication skills, the ability to manage multiple complex tasks at once, a level of professionalism & polish, an enjoyment interfacing with top leaders in a company, and the ability to tell great stories visually and in presentation format.
If what’s outlined above sounds like a good fit to you - the ability to work with a leader at the top and all that entails, being a generalist leader yourself: good at a lot of things, enjoy a breadth of work, enjoy learning a business from the top, and finally having some character traits like strong organizational skills, and solid communication, here are four groups of people that the Chief of Staff role is great for:
Undergraduate & graduate business school students
Executive assistants looking for a more strategic role with greater responsibility
Business operations or general manager roles looking to advance
Consultants looking to settle into a business
Are you in one of these groups and think a CoS role would be a great fit, but concerned that you don’t have all the skills you need yet? Don’t worry! They can absolutely be learned on the job. But if you are interested in jumpstarting your CoS career, check out this Chief of Staff Certification course. With over 50 hours of real-life, on-the-job style CoS scenarios, assignments, videos, interviews, and more, students leave feeling confident and competent to land and succeed in a Chief of Staff role.
Learn more about the CoS Certification course HERE.