How Effective Is Your Chief of Staff Partnership? An Executive Partnership Diagnostic

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Quiz Questions

1.
How often does your Chief of Staff understand what you need without requiring extensive direction from you?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
2.
How often does your Chief of Staff challenge your thinking or tell you something you may not want to hear?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
3.
How often does your Chief of Staff enable you to stay focused on the work that most requires your leadership?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
4.
How often do important priorities continue to move forward without requiring your direct involvement?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
5.
How often does your Chief of Staff surface issues, risks or organizational dynamics before they require your attention?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
6.
How often is your Chief of Staff thinking ahead about what you, your team or the organization will need next?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
7.
How often does your Chief of Staff help decisions move forward with clear ownership and follow-through?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
8.
How often does your Chief of Staff help prevent priorities, commitments or decisions from falling through the cracks?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
9.
How often can your Chief of Staff influence across teams and senior stakeholders without relying on your authority?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always
10.
How often does your Chief of Staff connect information, people and priorities across the organization in ways that improve alignment?
- A.
  Rarely
- B.
  Sometimes
- C.
  Often
- D.
  Almost Always

Quiz Outcomes

1.
Your Partnership Needs a Reset
Your results suggest your Chief of Staff partnership isn't currently creating the leverage it should.You may still be carrying too much of the coordination, decision-making, follow-through, or organizational navigation yourself. Your Chief of Staff may be working hard and delivering important work, but the partnership itself may not yet be operating at a truly strategic level.Before concluding that you have the wrong person, look at the conditions surrounding the role.Consider:Is it clear what your Chief of Staff owns?Do they have the access and authority needed to operate effectively?Have you given them permission to challenge you and tell you the truth?Are you delegating outcomes, or primarily delegating tasks?Do you have a regular way to surface expectations, tensions, and changing priorities?Sometimes the issue is capability. But often, the partnership simply hasn't been designed intentionally enough.Your next move:Have a candid reset conversation with your Chief of Staff. Get clear about what you each need from the partnership, where trust or clarity may be breaking down, and what would need to change for this relationship to create significantly more leverage.A Resource for Your Next StepI wrote The Handshake Meeting around a simple belief: high-performing partnerships don't happen by accident. They require clarity about expectations, the ability to tell each other the truth, and shared ownership for how the partnership works. If your results surfaced an opportunity in your Chief of Staff partnership, the Handshake Meeting is designed to support exactly this kind of work.Explore The Handshake Meeting on AmazonWant to go deeper?I'm Laurie Arron, an executive coach, former Chief of Staff, and best-selling author. I spent 27+ years in leadership at AT&T and served as Chief of Staff to three senior executives. Today, I advise senior leaders and Chiefs of Staff on building the clarity, trust, and ways of working that allow executive partnerships to perform at their best.
2.
Your Partnership Has Untapped Potential
Some elements of your Chief of Staff partnership are working, but you're probably not getting the full value the role can deliver.Your Chief of Staff may be dependable, responsive, and highly capable. Yet you may still find yourself too involved in decisions, connecting too many dots, driving follow-through, or discovering issues later than you'd like.This is often where a Chief of Staff can become stuck between being helpful and being truly strategic.The opportunity isn't necessarily to do more. It's to elevate how the partnership operates.Look closely at where the gaps are showing up. Is your Chief of Staff anticipating or primarily responding? Do they challenge your thinking or mostly support it? Can they move priorities and influence others without you, or does too much still depend on your involvement?Your next move:Identify the two areas where greater effectiveness would create the most leverage for you. Then talk openly with your Chief of Staff about what needs to change on both sides of the partnership to make that possible.A Resource for Your Next StepI wrote The Handshake Meeting around a simple belief: high-performing partnerships don't happen by accident. They require clarity about expectations, the ability to tell each other the truth, and shared ownership for how the partnership works.If your results surfaced an opportunity in your Chief of Staff partnership, the Handshake Meeting is designed to support exactly this kind of work.Explore The Handshake Meeting on Amazon Want to go deeper?I'm Laurie Arron, an executive coach, former Chief of Staff, and best-selling author. I spent 27+ years in leadership at AT&T and served as Chief of Staff to three senior executives. Today, I advise senior leaders and Chiefs of Staff on building the clarity, trust, and ways of working that allow executive partnerships to perform at their best.
3.
You Have a Strong Foundation
Your Chief of Staff partnership is working well.There is evidence of trust, leverage, and shared ownership. Your Chief of Staff likely helps priorities move, connects important dots, and creates capacity around you rather than simply taking tasks off your plate.But your results also suggest another level may be available.The strongest Chief of Staff partnerships keep evolving as the leader, role, and organization change. What worked six months ago may not be what the partnership needs now.The opportunity may be greater anticipation, more candid challenge, clearer decision authority, stronger organizational influence or simply raising the altitude at which your Chief of Staff operates.Your next move:Don't wait for something to stop working before you revisit the partnership.Ask each other:What's working exceptionally well? Where are we still leaving leverage on the table? What do we need from each other now that we didn't need six months ago?Those conversations are often what move a good partnership into a great one.A Resource for Your Next StepI wrote The Handshake Meeting around a simple belief: high-performing partnerships don't happen by accident. They require clarity about expectations, the ability to tell each other the truth, and shared ownership for how the partnership works.If your results affirmed the strength of your Chief of Staff partnership, The Handshake Meeting can help you continue evolving it as your roles and organization change.Explore The Handshake Meeting on AmazonWant to go deeper?I'm Laurie Arron, an executive coach, former Chief of Staff, and best-selling author. I spent 27+ years in leadership at AT&T and served as Chief of Staff to three senior executives. Today, I advise senior leaders and Chiefs of Staff on building the clarity, trust, and ways of working that allow executive partnerships to perform at their best.
4.
You Have a High-Leverage Executive Partnership
Your results suggest that you and your Chief of Staff have built something powerful.Your Chief of Staff isn't simply supporting your work. They are extending your leadership capacity.There is likely a high degree of trust, anticipation, and shared context between you. Important priorities can move without your constant involvement. Issues surface earlier. Your Chief of Staff can influence across the organization, challenge your thinking, and represent your priorities credibly when you're not in the room.That's what a high-performing Chief of Staff partnership should create.The opportunity now is not to fix the partnership. It's to keep evolving it.As your responsibilities, priorities, and organization change, keep revisiting the assumptions underneath how you work together. High-trust partnerships can become less effective when expectations that were once explicit gradually become assumed.Your next move:Use your next partnership conversation to ask one question:What would make this partnership even more valuable over the next six months?Then identify one or two changes that would increase the leverage you create together.A Resource for Your Next StepI wrote The Handshake Meeting around a simple belief: high-performing partnerships don't happen by accident. They require clarity about expectations, the ability to tell each other the truth, and shared ownership for how the partnership works.If your results affirmed the strength of your Chief of Staff partnership, The Handshake Meeting can help you continue evolving it as your roles and organization change.Explore The Handshake Meeting on AmazonWant to go deeper?I'm Laurie Arron, an executive coach, former Chief of Staff, and best-selling author. I spent 27+ years in leadership at AT&T and served as Chief of Staff to three senior executives. Today, I advise senior leaders and Chiefs of Staff on building the clarity, trust, and ways of working that allow executive partnerships to perform at their best.