Does Your Non-Profit Need a Chief of Staff?

Senior staff meetings were not going well; everyone hated them. Agendas arrived too late to prepare for the meeting and many of the topics were perfunctory, with little opportunity for input. The Chief of Staff created alternative communications channels for sharing critical information; agendas created with input from senior staff were distributed early enough for everyone to prepare; agenda items were limited to group discussion issues, with clear take-aways.

Chiefs of Staff give Executive Directors more bandwidth by being project managers, problem solvers, coaches, integrators, confidantes, strategists, and communicators.

They are invaluable members of the leadership in many not-for-profits (large and small), government agencies, and increasingly in startups and other growing businesses.

It is common for not-for-profit Executive Directors to have too much on their plate:

• Lacking timely information needed to make sound decisions, and as a result, can miss deadlines or important opportunities.
• Badgering staff to assure follow through on directives.
• Stalled strategic plans due to the lack of tracking, coordination, and follow up.
• Team members stuck in their silos and failing to align their work to strategic priorities.

With the additional strains from the pandemic, it is no wonder that many not-for-profit Executive Directors are overstressed. It is not for lack of administrative support; many already have executive assistants to handle logistics and routine matters.

But when it comes to more complex and strategic issues of how to manage time, projects, information, and people, these executives would benefit from someone focused on their effectiveness and success — the Chief of Staff.

Executives need more bandwidth, and they increasingly turn to Chiefs of Staff to help

Some Chiefs of Staff will substitute for the Executive Director in meetings or on initiatives, making decisions when the director cannot attend or is comfortable delegating that authority. Others work in parallel, shadowing their boss at meetings and making sure that there is follow up.

They manage projects, and corral the staff to keep initiatives moving forward and stay aligned with the mission.

Chiefs of Staff help the staff function better as a team, taking them out of their silos to work together in a more integrated way.

Setting ego aside, they speak with their principal’s authority, and, simultaneously, are the director’s eyes and ears, bringing back vital information in a timely fashion.

Executive Directors turn to their Chiefs of Staff as confidantes, sounding boards, and even strategic partners.

The Executive Director who was stretched to the point that they could no longer function at their peak is able to focus on high-priority tasks.

An executive director is getting too many speaking requests and needs to triage which she should do. Her Chief of Staff reviewed every new request and recommended which were of strategic benefit to the director and the organization. The Chief of Staff also took on preparation of speaking points and slides.

Challenged for time and managing and prioritizing their own schedule, Executive Directors often field too many internal and external requests for meetings or speaking engagements.

A Chief of Staff can be a traffic cop, keeping the Executive Director focused on primary responsibilities, and covering or delegating lower priority meetings.

In a strategic plan’s final year, no one has tracked progress on the plan’s tasks. The Chief of Staff takes charge of assessment and, working with each unit head, produces a report showing the status of the plan. They then coordinate the development of the next Plan, this time with a built-in process to track and report on progress in real time.

Unit-led projects may suffer from a narrow focus or dissolve into turf wars.

Chiefs of Staff can oversee organization-wide projects and initiatives that do not fit neatly in a single division.

With the authority inherent in being the Director’s right-hand person, the Chief of Staff leads unlike anyone else in the organization, even without having direct supervision in the hierarchy.

Chiefs of Staff are tactful relationship builders, creating connections across the organization and sometimes with outside entities as well; but always in the service of the Director.

Whether as surrogates, sidekicks, doers, strategic leaders, or confidential advisors, Chiefs of Staff support and free executive directors to do what they do best.

Overburdened directors who want to be more focused and effective, and need help moving the organization staff toward alignment with mission, can use the Chief of Staff to get there.

Part-time or full-time, on-site or remote, a Chief of Staff can be an essential role for a leader of any size not-for-profit.

Illustration credits: Amy Kirsch, Haley Phelps, and You X Ventures (Unsplash); RF Studio (Pexels); pch.vector — www.freepik.com