4 Reasons You Should Be Your Own Chief Of Staff

In his recent article, Why Every Organization Needs a Chief of Staff Like This One, General Stan McChrystal makes a case for having a chief of staff to multiply your effectiveness as a leader.

Although Gen. McChrystal’s experience was in the context of military assignments,  I’m assuming he’s put this advice out there for corporate business leaders.

Although budget constraints would take this option off the table for most leaders in today’s businesses, the article highlights some important duties leaders need to have done — by someone.  I think there are some compelling reasons why you’ll want to do them yourself.

You’ll know the network.  Sometimes a leader sees himself as a “big picture” person, who should delegate to someone else the details of going out and gathering the information necessary to make the big decisions.  But the small stuff is where all the action really is.  The success of most organizations rides on the communications between the folks in the trenches doing the work, and the minute-by-minute decisions they make every day.

Leaders ought to want to get as close to that as they possibly can.  That’s the best way to get the information you need to make the decisions only you can make. If you put a “buffer person” between you and your staff you’ll miss that opportunity.  And the first thing she’s likely to do is create her own “network” — one you’re not part of!

You’ll be your own force multiplier.  Sure you want to multiply your influence in your organization.  But putting that responsibility on another person who sits between you and the rest of your team in the hopes that person will “bring new insights” can easily devolve into “filtering and reinterpreting” what gets up to — and down from — you, the boss.

Relationships between you and your staff are built on good, clear, accurate communications, and are not something that are established once and then you’re good to go. They can be strengthened or damaged by a misstep in the moment-by-moment crush of workplace activity.

There are already many impediments and obstacles to good communication in any company, such as not wanting to be the bearer of bad news and protecting turf. Putting another person between the leader and her senior leadership team is more likely to make bad communication worse and strain relationships than it is to make anything better.

You’ll “own” 100% of your job.  Gen. McChrystal says “Be transparent.  My rule of thumb was, I want this person to think up to the 85% mark for me (the top 10-15% was mine to own).”

Sometimes leaders see their role as primarily Deciding and Telling. You may find your effectiveness in Fact-Finding is diminished because you’re trying to do it while wearing your Decision-Maker hat. Or, asking Teller-You to address a problem that Listener-You should attend to first.

If you’re in a leadership position and you have qualified and capable staff reporting to you, why would you want to bring in another person to do 85% of your thinking for you? Presumably you’re counting on every member of your team to own everything within the purview of his or her job.  Shouldn’t you want to set the example by doing the same with yours?

You won’t create a Rasputin.  The role of a Rasputin — interpreter, apologist, buffer, bully — just happens as a natural consequence of putting someone between the exec and his staff — someone who is not the boss but who has the power of the boss behind him.  If you put someone in that role, regardless of everyone’s good intentions, the negative consequences are likely to follow. And then you have to spend time dealing with the fallout and fixing those consequences. No leader can afford that.

It’s always tempting for a leader to say “That’s not a good use of my time. If I were freed up from doing that, I could spend my time on this other thing that’s way more important.”

Today’s leaders have to be versatile, to wear multiple hats, and fortunately we have great technology tools to help you do that.

Best of all, you have people who report to you with responsibility for functional areas, ready, willing and able to do the work. What they need is a good, clear, unfiltered line of communication with you, their leader.

Try facing that challenge head-on before you resort to putting another person with his or her own hopes, dreams, ambitions and agenda between you and the very people you’re depending on to do the work.