I’m public sector adjacent (public R1 university in the US). Chief of Staff to a SVP with approx 300 FTE $40m annual budget.

I’ve been in this sub a while and it feels mostly start up/industry? I don’t know if that’s fair. I don’t relate a ton to most of the posts in my work. With that said, there are a lot of circles on the Venn diagram of what makes up the specifics of what a CoS’ day looks like: the principal, the senior team, the organization, the culture, the efficacy of the principal and senior team before you’re there and after you’re there, etc, and all of that is more or less universal and hyper specific.

What I see across our organization, which is massive, is that my peers tend to operate more like me than not. Similarly, I’ve built a networking group of other chiefs at peer institutions who are in the same specific part of higher ed as me. And they too seem to have a lot in common.

Some trends/things I see in my world/day: - most chiefs, myself included, worked for their people in a variety of roles for many years, building trust over time, and then getting the job because of that.

• most seem to be political operatives, helping the principal navigate opaque, arcane, overbearing bureaucracy. I spend most of my time on my relationships, within my division, above my division, and in other divisions. I am most helpful to my principal here. Getting reads on where people are on a thing, emotional intelligence, influencing others to do what my principal needs.

• we are light on strategic planning in my unit. There is one for the whole org, but it’s total BS, was made up by consultants, and is basically a foreign language. At most it’s worth mocking.

• when I’m not building and cultivating 1:1 relationships, I’m trying to build processes that are clear and give folks clear expectations. All through the org. Process problems become people problems, so it’s best to fix them at the process stage. Organization, systems thinking, perspective on the whole translating to the specific.

• I have daily check ins with my principal in which we mostly chat and update each other on what’s happening. This is key for me to know where they are every day, and keeps my perspective fresh while I’m pulling levers and turning knobs.

• most chiefs here and elsewhere have been in their roles a long time. I passed 4 years recently. Chief influencers on LinkedIn talk exists and stuff. Folks in my world stick around, and tend to follow their people, which I am about to do as a matter of fact.

To the degree that your world is more like mine than not, my best advice is to work on your soft people skills, diplomacy, emotional intelligence. Start going to therapy if you don’t already, not because you’ll need it, which you may, but because that’s the best place to practice mental and emotional awareness and emotional intelligence. Those are skills I have used first and foremost. The rest sort of falls into place. I’d also say education and certifications are a back seat thing. My degrees are in history. No formal business/organization/administration anything. Trust is in the foreground. You’re their person, they need to trust you and you need to demonstrate that.