Chief of Staff

As a Chief, success in your role is often defined by the effectiveness of the principal or leadership team you support. It’s easy to be so focused on those around you that you lose sight of how you are showing up as a leader.

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Chief of Staff Strategy Graphic
Cricket Oles presenting at the Chief of Staff Leadership Retreat

Are you a Chief of Staff interested in developing your skills as a leader?

There is plenty out there about the skills needed to be effective and successful. But what about the leadership behaviors they need to display?

  • Do you struggle with managing multiple priorities?
  • Is it hard to delegate and let go of certain decisions and responsibilities?
  • Are you thinking about your next role and how you want to define your leadership style?
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Our approach to Chief of Staff development is not a one-size-fits-all model.

While certain responsibilities are common across the role, we know that how the Chief of Staff utilized is dependent on the organization you’re in, who you work for, and your unique strengths. And while the role has inherent ambiguity, our framework is designed to help make sense of that ambiguity by providing guardrails that Chiefs of Staff can leverage. This ensures that the Chief remains a pivotal and adaptable figure within any organization, effectively bridging gaps and addressing specific challenges. Our framework empowers them to operate with clarity, aligning their individual strengths with the overarching goals of the organization.

One Mission

Chief of Staff Excerpt

Taken from Chris Fussell's book One Mission, this chapter walks through Fussell's experience as a Chief of Staff, shaped by his time as General Stan McChrystal's aide-de-camp while incorporating academic research and management theory.

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Chief of Staff Book Cover, "One Mission"

Our framework was conceived out of hard-won experience and has been tested with hundreds of Chiefs of Staff across the world.

Its message is simple: there are core responsibilities that must be done to enable a leadership team or senior executive to be successful. But as Chiefs of Staff develop, they can (and should) shift from one quadrant to the next, taking on more responsibility and having increased influence across the organization.

Chief of Staff Framework

Upcoming Chief of Staff Events

Our Chief of Staff Leadership Retreat is an exclusive program designed to empower and equip current Chiefs of Staff with the necessary tools and insights to enhance their influence within their organizations. This retreat offers a unique opportunity to connect with peers, reflect on experiences, and learn new frameworks and skills.

Please check back for future events.

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Chiefs of Staff are critical in the distribution and flow of information within an organization. This communication is needed more than ever in times of risk and uncertainty.

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Asking the 5 Whys

As a Chief of Staff, you are presented with many different problems to solve every day, so it is crucial to realize that solving the issue is not as quick as just seeing the problem and getting resources behind it. Cricket shares how you can leverage asking the five whys to truly understand the root problem before just applying resources or energy towards solving the wrong issue.

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Chief of Staff Framework

The McChrystal Group Chief of Staff framework is broken into four quadrants along the lines of what a Chief is expected to accomplish as they develop in the role to support the success of a task-saturated senior executive. Learn how Chiefs can leverage the framework as they progress in their role.

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Insights

What Is a Chief of Staff?

A Chief of Staff can be a multifaceted and indispensable position in modern organizations. Cricket Oles answers some of the most common questions we get about Chief of Staff responsibilities, important skills, and relationship within the broader organization.
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