686: How to Benefit from a Chief of Staff, with Laurie Arron

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Laure Arron: Who Has Your Back?

Laurie Arron is the founder of Arron Coaching, LLC and trusted adviser and executive coach to C-suite executives and Chiefs of Staff. She spent 30+ years climbing the corporate ladder at a Fortune 10 company in sales leadership, strategic planning, business transformation, and Chief of Staff roles. She is the author of Who Has Your Back?: A Leaders’s Guide to Getting the Support You Need from the Chief of Staff You Deserve.

Executive leaders need both truth-tellers and those who can manage on their behalf. Increasingly, the Chief of Staff role is becoming more prominent. In this episode, Laurie and I discuss their role, where they add value, and how they benefit the entire team.

Key Points

The Chief of Staff role has become a more prevalent executive role, especially in the technology, finance, and healthcare industries.
A Chief of Staff is distinct from an executive assistant. A effective Chief represents the leader, manages on their behalf, and coordinates their work.
Every top leader needs a truth teller. A key role of the Chief of Staff is to be up-front with the person they serve.
An effective Chief is proactive in addressing issues before the leader ever knows about them. They know where messages are being lost or diluted.
Ideally, the Chief of Staff helps create a climate of free expression throughout the team.

Resources Mentioned

Who Has Your Back?: A Leaders’s Guide to Getting the Support You Need from the Chief of Staff You Deserve by Laurie Arron
Let Bartlet Be Bartlet from The West Wing

Interview Notes

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Executive leaders need both truth-tellers and those who can manage on their behalf.
0:06.0	Increasingly, the chief of staff role is becoming more prominent.
0:11.0	In this episode, the role of the chief of staff, the value they add, and how they
0:16.7	benefit the entire team. This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 686. Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.
0:30.0	Greetings to you from Orange County, California.
0:35.0	This is coaching for leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviac.
0:39.6	Leaders aren't born.
0:41.4	They're made.
0:42.3	And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom
0:45.1	through insightful conversations. If your experience has been anything like
0:50.1	mine you have heard the title Chief of Staff a lot more in recent years than maybe
0:56.4	it did in the past. And I think many of us have a bit of an opinion about what does the
1:02.1	title Chief of Staff mean, but we don't necessarily think about it
1:06.8	through the lens of today's organization. And how can leaders best use the Chief of Staff and when can a chief of staff a chief of staff and when can a chief of staff really help to shape
1:17.0	the priorities of an organization and a leader?
1:19.5	Today I'm so glad to welcome someone who's such an expert in this space will help us to do a better job of thinking
1:25.4	about how we can leverage this role so well. I'm so pleased to welcome Lori Aaron. She is the
1:30.4	founder of Aaron coaching and trusted advisor and executive coach to cease
1:35.2	sweet executives and chiefs of staff. She spent 30 plus years climbing the corporate ladder
1:39.9	at a Fortune 10 company in sales leadership, strategic planning, and business transformation.
1:45.4	She has also served as a chief of staff to senior executives.
1:49.0	She's the author of who has your back, a leader's guide to getting the support you need from the chief of staff you deserve?
	...

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