Identify the Soft Skills Needed for Your Chief of Staff

After you’ve identified hard skills for your future Chief of Staff, it’s time to get to the squishier side of the equation. I’d argue that it’s the soft skills that make the Chief of Staff reach their maximum potential. Here are our top 8:

Communication

Chiefs of Staff are short on time and interface with 100s of different stakeholders on a weekly basis. Every interaction counts, whether it’s async or sync, video or in-person, phone or text. The best of the best know the communication preferences of every single person they talk with.

Teamwork

Chiefs of Staff need to motivate disparate team members across different business units to drive strategic cross-functional initiatives. They need to partner up with marketing, sales, product, finance, legal etc. Only those with strong teamwork skills will succeed.

Adaptability

Top Chiefs of Staff use flexibility to their advantage to adapt to changing business goals, competitor threats and economic environments. They have to context switch between different tasks as well.

Conflict resolution

Let’s face it, work is not all sunshine and rainbows. There will be politics and personnel issues. The A+ Chief of Staff can play diplomat to diffuse situations and subdue tempers.

Leadership

The CEO can’t be everywhere, everything all at once. So that means that the Chief of Staff needs to step in to situations and be the de-facto leader. A-Player Chiefs of Staff don’t shy away from these opportunities. They confidently flex their leadership skills.

Empathy

It’s often said that the Chief of Staff is the Chief Therapist for the company. They know everyone’s problems. (Yikes!) The Chief of Staff needs to take an active listening role to hear out team members issues and then be able to provide actionable coaching as requested.

Scrappiness

The Chief of Staff uses creativity as their secret weapon to do a lot more with a lot less. How else are they going to cross off 50 action items on their list? This is where resourcefulness and delegation can come in handy.

Networking and relationship building

The Chief of Staff is a master relationship builder, flexing their aforementioned communication and empathy skills to connect with everyone. They understand hidden agendas and build trust by helping others get to where they want to go.

Leaders, think long and hard about what soft skills will be most important in your next Chief of Staff.

Ready to uncover the essential soft skills for your next Chief of Staff? Download our Chief of Staff Playbook here to explore how communication, empathy, and more can elevate your leadership team to new heights.