Get Your Guide To Working With A Chief Of Staff

As the CEO of a fledgling company, your time is consumed by setting strategy, growing the business, building your top team and fundraising. Optimising the workflow, that is, ensuring that the functions of your business operate productively with each other, isn’t traditionally part of the CEO remit.

Nor is ensuring your ideas make it off the drawing board or managing communication across your various business functions. They are all essential. But such roles aren’t typically in the job descriptions of any member of a startup top team either.

That’s what a Chief of Staff can offer. You can find out more about the Chief of Staff role, and the difference between it and other C- suite roles here. In this document, we’ll focus on four key questions:

• Do you need a Chief of Staff?
• What role could a Chief of Staff fulfil in your
  organisation?
• What role should a Chief of Staff fulfil in your
  organisation?
• How do you choose the right Chief of Staff for
  you?

Appointing a Chief of Staff (CoS) isn’t quite like appointing anyone else. The role has variously been described as broker, fixer, gatekeeper, confidant and air traffic controller. As a minimum, the CoS is there to create space and time for the CEO. So whether you need one requires an honest assessment of your performance as CEO now and an understanding of how your role may be affected by upcoming plans.

Get our free checklist with this guide to assess your need for a CoS. The more ticks in the ‘Yes’ column, the more likely you’ll find a CoS of real value.