What Problem Are You Actually Trying to Solve with a Chief of Staff?

The Chief of Staff title can mean very different things depending on the organization. The better question is not whether the title sounds right, but what kind of capacity the organization actually needs.

I have lost count of how many times I’ve referenced Dan Ciampa’s 2020 Harvard Business Review article, The Case for a Chief of Staff.

It tends to come up whenever someone starts talking about adding a Chief of Staff role. Not because they don't know what the title means, but because the title is often used as if everyone in the room already agrees on what the role entails.

They usually do not.

One person hears “Chief of Staff” and remembers a past workplace where the EA stepped into a broader role and became the manager of the executive office: calendar judgment, meeting preparation, follow-up, information flow, and making sure the leader was not constantly operating out of their inbox.

Someone else equates the role to an internal PMO leader: operating cross-functionally, moving strategic projects forward, and keeping important work from getting stuck between departments.

A third person may be picturing what they experienced when a board added the role at the C-suite level: a CEO thought partner who helped clarify priorities, navigate team dynamics, shape decision flow, and maintain the organization’s operating rhythm.

Those are all possible versions of the role. They are not the same job.

That is why Ciampa’s framework is useful. It lays out a spectrum, from what many people might recognize as an “EA-plus” role through to a much more senior strategic partner. I don't think of that spectrum as a hierarchy of importance so much as a way to ask a better question:

What kind of capacity are we actually trying to add?

That question matters because the Chief of Staff conversation usually begins at a moment of pressure. Work starts slipping between teams. Decisions take longer than they should. The CEO is carrying too much context in their own head. The organization feels heavier than its size should require.

In that environment, “maybe we need a Chief of Staff” can be a good instinct. But it is still only a starting point.

Sometimes the real need is executive leverage: someone to bring order to the leader’s time, attention, preparation, and communication so the leader can operate less reactively. In that version, success may look like a CEO who is better prepared, less buried in follow-up, and spending more time on the work only they can do.

Sometimes the need is cross-functional execution: someone to connect work across teams, surface blockers, and keep priorities moving. Success there may look like fewer stalled initiatives, cleaner handoffs, and more decisions turning into action after the meeting ends.

And sometimes the need is more senior: a partner who can see across the organization and help the CEO and leadership team navigate complexity, clarify tradeoffs, strengthen decision flow, and improve the operating rhythm of the organization. Success in that version may look less like a completed task list and more like a leadership team that is making better decisions with less drag.

Once you name the actual need, you can make more deliberate decisions about how to structure the role.

In the hiring process, compensation is often where the mismatch becomes most obvious. A company may describe the role like a senior operator, price it like administrative support, and then wonder why the candidate pool doesn't match the expectations. Or it may pay for a senior person while designing the role around inbox management, meeting notes, and loose follow-up work that doesn't require that level of experience.

A late signal after you've made the hire is authority. A leader may say they want a strategic partner, but keep the role admin-heavy in practice. An executive team may expect cross-functional impact without giving the person the access or permission to convene people, ask hard questions, or press for decisions. The organization may want someone to operate as an extension of the CEO, but keep them away from the context that would make that possible.

That is how the role becomes the catch-all for everything no one owns.

At first, the person may look extremely useful. Loose ends are handled. Follow-up improves. Work that was previously floating now has somewhere to go. But usefulness is not the same as leverage. Designed well, the role creates capacity. Designed poorly, it introduces new friction that can be difficult and costly to unwind.

Avoid this by defining the constraint first, then designing the role around what that constraint actually requires.

CEO at operating capacity → executive leverage
Work stalling between teams → cross-functional execution
Rising complexity → more seniority, access, and trust

Each version can be valuable. Each requires a different role, level, and scope.

The same discipline applies beyond Chief of Staff hiring. When a team feels stretched, it is tempting to reach for the role you already know how to name: marketing associate, operations associate, finance associate, project manager. Sometimes that is right. But sometimes the real gap is a process, a tool, clearer ownership, or cross-functional coordination that does not sit neatly inside the old job description.

Before the title hardens into the solution, ask what would actually change the outcome. Is the organization missing hands, judgment, coordination, authority, follow-through, or infrastructure?

Those are different gaps. They point to different solutions.

That is the reason I keep coming back to Ciampa’s article. The Chief of Staff framework is useful not because it gives one universal answer, but because it helps leaders have a more precise conversation before they hire, by asking:

What kind of capacity are we actually trying to add?

Answer that first, and the role gets clearer. Skip it, and you may still add a capable person, but not the capacity the organization actually needed.