By Vicki Bates, CEO PEAS
Most executives think of a Chief of Staff as a luxury hire. They see it as someone that you bring into the organization when they think they're big enough to justify it.
There is a big issue here in what those same executives often miss. If you have a high-performing Executive Assistant, you may already have a Chief of Staff and don't even know it.
The line between a great EA and what should be expected from that of a Chief of Staff is thinner than most people realize. By confusing the two of these job roles, or rather failing to see the overlap through lack of understanding between the roles, is one of the most common ways founders and executives leave capacity on the table.
So What Does a Chief of Staff Actually Do?
Strip away the title and the organizational chart, and a Chief of Staff does a few things consistently well that can be seen throughout various areas of work.
They act as a force multiplier for the executive. What I mean by this is that they absorb complexity so the executive doesn't have to, leveraging the executive's time, typically operating with an informal authority through direct proximity (for Fractional and remote often with Slack messages) to the leader rather than owning a specific corporate function. They manage the information flow of what reaches the leader's desk, in what form, and when, and are able to hold accountability across teams. Most importantly, they have a key position of serving as a confidential sounding board for ideas, risks, and organizational decisions.
That's the job.
Now what you need to ask yourself is how much of that sounds like an EA?
Where the Roles Overlap
The EA role was never just managing an executive's logistics. At the highest levels of performance, an Executive Assistant is already doing the work and role of a Chief of Staff, but more often than not without the title, the visibility, or the compensation that reflects it.
Consider where the functions merge:
Information management. A great EA doesn't just schedule the meeting and take notes. They prepare the brief, they know what context the executive needs before walking in the room, and they make sure it's there. A Chief of Staff does a similar thing but the difference is often scale, not function.
Stakeholder management. An EA who manages the executive's relationships such as following up on behalf of the leader, triaging requests, and maintaining a rhythm with key contacts is clear stakeholder coordination. That's CoS territory.
Operational oversight. When an EA is flagging missed follow-ups, tracking commitments, and keeping project threads from going dark, they're holding the organization accountable on the executive's behalf. Again, that's another function of a Chief of Staff.
Strategic & tactical filtering. This is where many people draw the line, and we can view it as a false one. Great EAs understand their executive's priorities deeply enough to make judgment calls about what rises to the top and what doesn't, and most importantly have the authority to make that call.
Why This Matters
If your EA is performing at this level and you're still treating the role as a scheduling function, you're getting a fraction of the value available to you.
But on the flip side if you're waiting to hire a Chief of Staff because you think you're "not big enough yet" you may be pushing for a solution to a problem you've already solved without realizing it.
The question worth asking isn't whether you need a Chief of Staff (it's highly likely you do in fact require someone in this position, on a Fractional basis as a minimum), it's whether you've given your EA the scope, the authority, and the context to operate at that level.
The EA role is evolving, and therefore so is the expectation of what great executive support looks like at the founder and senior leadership level.
If you want to protect your time and multiply your capacity, this is where it starts.
Vicki Bates is the Founder and CEO of PEAS (Professional Executive Associates Inc.), a Canada-based fractional executive support firm offering Executive Assistant services, Fractional Chief of Staff support, and Sales Enablement.