Chief of Staff or COS can play a vital role in easing the job of CEOs or administration of a company.
What are the responsibilities of a COS?
The prime responsibility of the Chief of Staff or COS is to make time, information, and decision-making more effective for the leaders. They are not going to handle the routine correspondence or the leader’s day-to-day schedule. But their job includes the following:
- Maximize the efficiency of the workers with minimal or moderate change
- Help the leaders to be more organized and practice their work.
- Doing project management
- Manage relationships
- Simplify complexities
- Does strategic thinking and problem analysis
- Can successfully implement the process idea to execution
- Can anticipate and avert problems
- Can understand and add values to the leader’s vision
- Has organizational as well as political intelligence.
When do I need a COS?
Suppose you are a newly appointed or an existing CEO or leader of a company and face the following while working. In that case, you should immediately select the COS without any delay.
- You cannot spend your time on the essential items of your to-do list. Instead, you are spending more time on less critical things.
- Do you get enough time to plan for your future strategies, or are you spending more time solving the existing issues?
- Are you getting complete and on-time information for a decision you need to make solely, or are you getting surprises with new details every time you try to establish your decision?
- Do you feel unprepared for a meeting or decision-making in most cases? Do you think you are not well prepared for the consequences you might face after taking a decision?
- Do you often face significant problems unexpectedly, and you are not well prepared for the problems you are facing?
- When you ask for feedback from your managers, are you not sure that they will follow up and give you the feedback on time.
If your answer is YES to most of the above points, it is high time to look for a COS.
Though some leaders are still reluctant to appoint the COS as they think that the role of COS makes the leader seem envious of “encourage.” This reluctance is understandable, but once you set it up correctly, it can help you manage your work and solve problems more efficiently. Especially, the leaders who are new to the organization require more help from a COS. There should be acceptance and understanding from both sides to do the job successfully. Both should be open in exchanging ideas and collaborating.
There is also an essential factor COS is working by rotation. During their working tenure, they get a chance to prove themselves for future promotions, which is a good side of it.