Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

IF YOU THINK about who wields the power in any organization, from a company all the way up to a nation’s government, do you think of the actual head honcho? Or do you think about their proverbial right-hand man, pulling the strings and flying well under the radar?

Increasingly in big private sector companies, it’s the latter — the chief of staff — who represents the real power centre.

“Once rare in business, the chief of staff position is becoming more important and popular in the upper ranks of many multinational companies and fast-growing startups,” reads a Financial Times report. About 65 per cent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies now have a chief of staff, as do one in four series B startups, the report claims.

“Bosses are increasingly turning to a chief of staff, trusted deputy or outside adviser to help shoulder the load of shaping strategy, managing the expectations of investors, staff and customers and protecting the reputations of the company.”

This is a relatively new development in the private sector — the chief of staff has long been associated with the military or government. According to the Institute of Management, Technology and Finance, the proof is in the postings. “A quick search on LinkedIn for ‘chief of staff’ consistently reveals thousands of open positions globally,” they wrote. “The demand is real, significant, and growing.”

And it can be a good job to land if you’re eyeing upward mobility. “The role is now widely viewed as a ‘CEO in training’ position,” wrote HR search and recruitment firm Elliott Scott. “It gives ambitious professionals exposure to board-level strategy and executive decision-making, often working side-by-side with the CEO.”

So, if you’re already a CEO, do you need a chief of staff? Well, look perhaps to the great names who had one: Cicero, Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington — all had prominent chiefs of staff who were much more than mere aides-de-camp.

“The right chief of staff can be an important source of assistance to leaders who are pushing their organizations and themselves to ever better performance,” wrote the Harvard Business Review.

Yes, your mid-sized regional tech consultancy may not be the First French Republic — but a bit of help never hurts. 

C-SUITE

If you want to run a company, run a marathon

A new breed of CEOs don’t just make time to run — they feel running is a cornerstone to success in all areas of life

IT’S 6:45 A.M. and you’re rolling into the office, inhumanely early, to finish up some project or another. As you down your second coffee of the day, you wonder: where is your boss? At home in bed?

Maybe, but these days the answer might be out on the roads. It’s Threshold Thursday, duh. Boss-person has four-by-ten-minute reps at 10k pace on the training schedule. No time for quarterly reports if you want to go sub-three at Philly next month!

Running has boomed, you might have heard, and although running has long been touted as the every-person sport — all you really need are a pair of runners and a cheap Timex — it’s capturing the imagination of everyone, all the way up to the C-suite, where according to Bloomberg, marathon times have become a fascination of top business executives.

“Today, there’s running, and then there’s rich people running,” writes Laura Noonan, detailing the lengths the upper crust is going to. “That’s especially true for finance types, for whom running can be a target-driven point of focus.”

One such runner making the rounds with a new book is the CEO of The Atlantic, Nicholas Thompson, who was often better known to colleagues as “the guy who runs to the office.”  Thompson, the author of The Running Ground, is the quintessential example of this phenomenon: a high performing business leader whose main non-work outlet for some time has been running, and who sees it not entirely separate from his identity as a company man.

“It encourages simple habits — healthy sleep, healthy eating, moderate drinking — that help me improve as a father and a business leader just as much as they help me improve as a runner,” he wrote in a recent essay.

Ask most runners and they’ll give you some version of the spiel that running helps them do all the other things they want, or have, to do. And for the CEOs of the world, there is probably merit to it. A 2023 study presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management found there was evidence that marathoner CEOs might be good for their firms. “Our results suggest a positive relationship between marathon CEO and firm strategic persistence,” the researchers wrote. “Moreover, the relationship between marathon CEO and strategic persistence turns stronger when the CEO runs more marathons and when the CEO runs marathons for a longer time.”

And while it may seem preferable to keep running as a non-work-related pursuit, there’s some room for overlap these days, and some job candidates are even including their running pursuits on their résumé — something you might laugh off as a humble brag, but which recruiters and career coaches say can communicate helpful information.

“Sports achievements can be a way to highlight workplace-valued traits, many fitness fans and recruiters say,” reads a report from The Wall Street Journal. “Just don’t get carried away: noting your personal best times can be a little much.” 

ETHICS

Should meetings be a texting-free zone?

Some top CEOs are raging about employees texting in meetings. Others hold different views

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS earned themselves a few unlikely allies in the perpetual battle against texting in class recently, with a couple major business names — Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon — coming out in the press to gripe about texting.

“This has to stop. It’s disrespectful. It wastes time,” said Dimon (doing his best impression, I imagine, of my grade 12 economics teacher Mr. Delaney). The issue was not only included in his annual investor letter, but also in keynote speeches he’s been delivering. At Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, for example: “If you have an iPad in front of me and it looks like you’re reading your email or getting notifications, I tell you to close the damn thing!” he said.

Brian Chesky, at least, was somewhat more self-reflective. “It’s a huge problem,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “I text, but then people see me text, they text. This is a major societal problem.”

Is it, though? Is texting in meetings really a major societal problem, or is this just another something that sends certain Boomers into a tailspin? While there is plenty of robust evidence that distractions are distractions, those more in tune with the day-to-day realities of the average employee may be inclined to roll their eyes.

“People use their cellphones for all types of meaningful information today,” said Bob Chapman, chairman of capital equipment and engineering solutions firm Barry-Wehmiller and author of leadership book Everybody Matters. “It never occurred to me to tell people not to use their cellphone in a meeting.”

Maybe then, it’s more helpful to turn the tables back on Dimon and Chesky: If people are texting, maybe your meetings are boring. That’s the lesson here for recruiting CEO Andy Decker, who has his colleagues text him when meetings are growing stale.

“A text can be helpful,” Decker said. “Like, ‘Don’t get in the weeds on this one, you’re losing people.’ It makes the meetings better because we allow that.” 

TRENDS

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Miss the ’90s lifestyle? You only need a tote and some simple supplies to escape the digital world

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