From the course: Become a Chief of Staff

Characteristics of a successful chief of staff

From the course: Become a Chief of Staff

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Characteristics of a successful chief of staff

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- You know, I would say, a great Chief of Staff may not have that experience in strategic initiatives or communications or operations, but they usually have I would say five characteristics in common. Those five characteristics are one, business and functional acumen, and what this means is really understanding how the business works, the strategy, the mission, the vision, and how all the functions across the organization come together to achieve those goals. The second one is self-awareness, and what this means is understanding that people are going to perceive you differently in this role. You're no longer Brian. You're now Jeff's Chief of Staff, and that means the words that you say, the actions that you execute on are going to land differently. The third one is communications and trust. Because you're going to be working alongside senior executives whose schedules are packed, it's really important that you're able to communicate effectively, precisely, and succinctly. Trust, as our CEO Jeff Weiner says, is consistency over time, and there's no substitute for either. In this role, you have to consistently deliver and have that sensitivity and discretion around those conversations and confidential topics. And the more you can do that, the more trust you're going to build with this team over time. And the fourth is organization and getting stuff done. You're going to be juggling multiple projects and multiple stakeholders and deliverables and deadlines at any given time, and so your ability to prioritize and get things done is going to be critical. The fifth and last one I think may be the most important. It's growth mindset. In this role, I guarantee you're going to make mistakes. I've made my share of mistakes and I can tell you, they never feel good. But your ability to learn from those mistakes, to reflect on those mistakes, and not make the same ones again because in this role if you make the same mistake twice, it may be your last chance, I think it's really important. So having that growth mindset, one of curiosity and asking questions, of learning from mistakes, of feeling a sense of resilience in the face of adversity, is going to be really helpful for you in the Chief of Staff role, or really any role for that matter.

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