By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT
Open three job boards and you will find the same chief of staff job description on all of them. Strategic partner to the CEO. Drives cross-functional initiatives. Excellent communicator. Every line is true and none of it tells a candidate what they will actually own on day one.
That generic version is also what AI produces when you ask it cold, which is why I tell CEOs not to. The useful description comes from your own week, not from a template.
So this page does it in two parts. First, the log that tells you what belongs in the role. Then the full template, on the page, ready to copy. No download, no email.
Quick answer: A chief of staff job description should state six things: the purpose of the role in one sentence, the reporting line, the decisions the chief of staff makes alone, the outcomes they own rather than a list of tasks, the meetings they run, and what success looks like after 90 days. Requirements and compensation come last. Most published templates cover responsibilities and skills but leave out decision rights.
How do you write a chief of staff job description?
A delegation log is a running list, kept for four to eight weeks, of every task and decision a CEO wishes someone else could handle, sorted by how urgently it should leave the CEO's desk.
Start there, not with the posting. For a month or two, every time you think "I wish I could delegate this," write it down. Phone notes are fine. Then ask one question of each item: is this good for me?
Sort the answers into three columns.
- Must delegate. Recurring, draining, and someone else could do it well. These become the core responsibilities.
- Should delegate. Work you do fine but that steals hours from building. These become the second tier.
- Could delegate. Nice to hand off, but not urgent. These go in "other duties" or wait for year two.
After the log, run a thirty-day window of short conversations with people who have hired for this seat: advisors, peers, operators you trust. Be blunt about your actual problem in the first minutes. Record the calls with permission, and pull the patterns out afterwards.
Only then feed the log and the notes into AI to draft the role. The draft will be yours, because the raw material was yours.
If you want a starting read on your own habits before you begin the log, the delegation quiz takes a few minutes and shows what you already hand off well.
What should a chief of staff job description include?
A working chief of staff job description has eight sections. The two most templates skip are marked.
| Section | What it answers | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Why the role exists, in one sentence | Your biggest must-delegate cluster |
| Reporting line | Who they report to, who reports to them | Your org chart today |
| Decision rights (usually skipped) | What they decide alone, what they recommend, what they never decide | The authority you are actually willing to give |
| Outcomes | What they own, stated as results | Must and should columns of the log |
| Operating rhythm | Which meetings they run or prepare | Your weekly and quarterly calendar |
| First 90 days (usually skipped) | What done looks like at day 30, 60 and 90 | Your top three must-delegate items |
| Requirements | Experience and wiring you need | The profile that complements yours |
| Compensation | Base, variable pay, review timing | Market data plus your two-quarter plan |
The chief of staff job description template (copy it)
Copy this into your document and replace every bracket. Delete any line you cannot make specific. A vague line in a job description becomes a vague month in the job.
Title: Chief of Staff to the CEO
Company: [Company name], [one-line description of what you sell and to whom]
Reports to: [CEO name], Chief Executive Officer
Direct reports: [None at start / executive assistant]
Location: [City, hybrid or remote, travel expectation]
Why this role exists
Our CEO's time has become the constraint on how fast we decide and follow through. This role owns the follow-through, so the CEO can spend more hours on [building: new markets, key customers, product, fundraising].
Decisions you make on your own
[Example: scheduling and agenda of the weekly leadership team meeting]
[Example: approving spend up to (amount) inside an agreed budget]
[Example: reprioritizing cross-functional projects when two teams conflict, then informing the CEO]
[Example: which requests reach the CEO and in what form]
Decisions you prepare and recommend
[Example: hiring and pay decisions for director-level roles]
[Example: changes to the quarterly priorities]
[Example: vendor and partner contracts above (amount)]
Decisions that stay with the CEO
Company strategy, senior hiring and firing, board and investor relationships, [add yours].
What you own (outcomes, not tasks)
1. Every commitment made in the leadership team meeting has an owner and a date, and slips are raised within one week.
2. The CEO walks into every major meeting with a one-page brief: the decision needed, the options, a recommendation.
3. Decisions the CEO makes reach the people affected within 48 hours, in the CEO's words.
4. [The largest must-delegate cluster from the log, written as a result]
5. [Second cluster, written as a result]
6. Cross-functional projects without a natural owner, starting with [named project].
Meetings you run or prepare
Weekly leadership team meeting (prepare, run the follow-up). Quarterly planning (prepare the pre-reads and track outcomes). Board meetings (prepare the pack with the CFO). A short daily check-in with the CEO.
Your first 90 days
Day 30: you know every leader's priorities and you run the follow-up on the weekly leadership meeting.
Day 60: you own [first must-delegate outcome] end to end and the CEO no longer touches it.
Day 90: you own [second outcome], and the decision list above has been reviewed with the CEO and adjusted.
What we need from you
[Number] or more years in roles where you made things happen across teams without formal authority.
A track record of execution: projects finished, not just planned.
Written communication the CEO would sign without edits.
Comfort saying "no" and "not yet" to senior people on the CEO's behalf.
[Industry or functional knowledge, only if truly required]
What this role is not
Not an executive assistant role: calendar and travel sit with [name or the EA]. Not a department head: no function reports to this role at start.
Compensation
[Base range]. [Variable pay tied to company targets]. Review at [six or twelve] months.
That is the whole template. The sections below explain the choices behind the brackets.
What decisions can a chief of staff make?
A chief of staff can make whatever decisions you write down, and nothing else. That sounds obvious. It is the line most CEOs never write.
My working definition of the role is someone who has the decision authority of smaller and mid-sized things, but not the big things. Put the line in the description in three tiers, as the template does: decides alone, recommends, never decides.
The common failure here is delegating the responsibility for a task while still holding onto its authority. You produce a role in name only. The chief of staff owns the outcome on paper and needs your yes on every step in practice.
A quick test: read the "decisions you make on your own" list aloud. If every item on it is something an assistant could decide, you are writing a description for the wrong role. The chief of staff guide covers where the role sits between an assistant and a COO.
What are the responsibilities of a chief of staff?
The chief of staff responsibilities that matter are written as outcomes. "Manage the leadership meeting" is a task. "Every commitment made in the leadership meeting has an owner and a date" is an outcome.
That is the difference between delegating the task and delegating the outcome. When you delegate the outcome, you state the result you want and the deadline, and the other person chooses how to get there. It is the core of the delegating leadership style, and it is why the template lists six results instead of twenty chief of staff duties.
It also keeps the role honest over time. A task list only grows. An outcome list forces you to say which result matters more when two of them collide.
A small example from my own business: my chief of staff runs the exit interview with people who leave our group when I cannot, and makes a short first-contact call to new buyers of our entry product. Both are written as results, not steps: the person leaving is heard, and the new buyer is asked what problem they were actually trying to solve.
What qualifications does a chief of staff need?
Chief of staff qualifications are less about credentials and more about wiring. The rule I give CEOs is to build a profile that is not you.
If you lead with influence and strategy, you need someone who leads with execution and has enough influence to be heard. Not another visionary. Not a pure relationship builder. Two people who both love starting things will leave a trail of starts.
For experience, published data gives a range. McKinsey's analysis of about 250 chiefs of staff found an average of just over 12 years of work experience, with roughly half coming from strategy and operations functions, and two common entry points: five to ten years in, and ten to twenty years in (McKinsey, "Chief of staff: Anatomy of the role in eight charts", 2024). The earlier group tended toward governance and project work; the later group more often acted as the principal's proxy.
Pick the band that matches your decision list. If the list is short, you can hire earlier in someone's career. If you want a real proxy in the room, hire from the later band and expect to pay for it. The chief of staff salary page sets the published pay data by level side by side.
What should a chief of staff achieve in the first 90 days?
Something visible every month. The template's day 30, 60 and 90 lines exist so both of you can tell, early, whether the hire works.
The first weeks look messy, and that is normal. My clock for a senior hire runs in two-week blocks: the first two weeks the new person is in headless chicken mode, the next two they get control, and only in the last two of the first six weeks can you really measure them. Then check again at two months and at three.
Do not wait for a perfect description before you hire. The role will keep evolving whatever you do. My estimate is that a new hire's understanding of the job is about 80 percent right within days of real exposure to the work, and the rest is teachable.
A standard 90-day window works as a low-risk trial. Delay costs you information, not risk.
Who does a chief of staff report to, and who reports to them?
The chief of staff reports to the CEO directly. Anything else, and the role loses the one thing that makes it work: people know the chief of staff speaks with the CEO's voice.
At the start, usually nobody reports to them. You can move the executive assistant under the chief of staff later. Decide it before the posting, not after, so candidates know what they are taking on.
One pattern worth writing into the description if you have it: the three-way one-on-one. When a report gets a new manager, the report, the new manager and that manager's chief of staff meet together, so priorities transfer without a gap.
What mistakes make a chief of staff job description fail?
Five of them, each one avoidable.
- Responsibility without authority. Covered above.
- Written cold. A description drafted from a job board or an AI prompt with no log behind it hires for a generic role, and you get a generic person.
- A copy of the CEO. The description lists your strengths as requirements. You end up with two people who want the same half of the job.
- Tasks instead of outcomes. Twenty duties, no results. Nobody can tell at day 90 whether it worked.
- Hiring before the process exists. Hire a senior person into an undefined operation and they install their process and their culture, not yours. Fix the leadership meeting and the core rhythm first, then hire into it.
Write three descriptions, then compare
The homework I give CEOs who are unsure which seat they need: write the job description for an executive assistant, a chief of staff and a COO. Then look at the deltas. Where the three differ tells you which one your log is actually asking for. And resist clicking apply on the posting until you have done it.
Chief of staff job description FAQ
What should a chief of staff job description include?
A complete chief of staff job description typically includes the purpose of the role, the reporting line, decision rights split into what the chief of staff decides alone and what they recommend, outcomes owned, meetings run, 30, 60 and 90 day success measures, requirements and compensation. Decision rights and 90-day outcomes are the two sections most published templates omit.
What are the main duties of a chief of staff?
The main duties of a chief of staff usually fall into four areas: running the executive operating rhythm, including the weekly leadership meeting and quarterly planning; turning the CEO's decisions into follow-through across teams; filtering and preparing what reaches the CEO; and owning cross-functional projects without a natural owner. Board preparation and internal communication are common additions.
Is a chief of staff a glorified executive assistant?
No. An executive assistant role is administrative, covering calendars, travel, correspondence and logistics. A chief of staff role sits at the leadership level, holds the leadership team to its commitments and makes small and mid-sized decisions on the CEO's behalf. A job description that lists mainly administrative tasks under a chief of staff title is describing an executive assistant role under a different name.
What qualifications does a chief of staff need?
Most chief of staff roles ask for several years of cross-functional experience, strong written communication and a record of delivering projects without formal authority. McKinsey's 2024 analysis of about 250 chiefs of staff found an average of just over 12 years of work experience, with roughly half coming from strategy or operations. Degree requirements vary widely by company and are rarely the deciding factor.
Should I use AI to write a chief of staff job description?
AI is useful for drafting once the raw material exists, and weak without it. A description generated from a cold prompt tends to reproduce the generic job board version. A stronger approach is to keep a log of tasks and decisions the CEO wants to hand off for four to eight weeks, sort them by priority, and then use AI to turn that log into a structured draft.
How long should a chief of staff job description be?
A working chief of staff job description usually fits on one to two pages. The length matters less than specificity: named decisions, named outcomes and dated 90-day measures. Long lists of generic duties make the posting look complete while telling candidates little about the actual job or how success will be judged.
Before you post it
A chief of staff job description is a contract with yourself before it is a posting. Every decision you list is one you promise to stop making. Every outcome you list is one you promise to stop checking daily.
So read the finished draft once more with that lens. If a line makes you nervous, good: it is real. If a line changes nothing about your week, cut it. For the conversation you will have when you hand the first outcomes over, the delegation training guide has the three-minute version and the check-in rule that goes with it.
When the description keeps coming out wrong
If you have written this three times and it still reads like a job board, the log is probably thin, or the authority line is not settled yet. A template cannot solve either.
That is the kind of work my 1:1 CEO advisory is built for. It opens with leadership assessments and preparation, then a full-day intensive at your location, which is a good place to build the must, should and could lists with you in the room. After that, weekly sessions keep the plan moving as the hire starts.
I have hired more than 80 people, and I was one of Canon's youngest CEOs. Bring your chief of staff job description draft to the first session and we will find out whether it is ready to post.
