There is no single career ladder or universal set of job responsibilities for a Chief of Staff (CoS).
The role, and its expectations, vary widely.
But there are patterns found across corporate CoS roles.
These patterns are highlighted in the…
- Current state and scale of an organization, executive team, and business operations.
- Key areas of responsibility and initiatives directly owned by the CoS.
- Experiences and prior roles held by the Chief of Staff.
- Ways the CoS supports their executive and leadership team.
- Desired successes and outcomes of the CoS.
- Expectations of what the CoS runs versus delegates out.
- Day-to-day calendar and tasks of the CoS.
Overview
Archetypes distill patterns into simple-to-understand examples. They are a limited, but useful tool. In practice almost all CoS roles are a mix of thes archetypes below. That said, archetypes create a starting place for understanding your job and its expectations.