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In March 2025, over 200 current, past, and aspiring Chiefs of Staff responded to Notion’s survey, in partnership with the Ask a Chief of Staff community. Respondents provided feedback on their professional experience, challenges, and future-looking priorities. This document shows the aggregate results and top takeaways from those responses.

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🎓 Professional Experience and Aspirations

The results:

• Over half (59%) of respondents have 11+ years of total professional experience, while an additional 36% have between 5-10 years of professional experience
• Conversely, it is relatively uncommon for Chiefs of Staff to be in their role for longer than 4 years, with 83% of respondents serving as Chief of Staff for 4 years or less
• CEO / President / Founder was the most supported principal
• Many Chiefs of Staff were in Operations and other team management roles immediately prior
• Current Chiefs of Staff are most interested in executive leadership roles, though many would like to continue in their CoS position as the second highest response

Top takeaways:

• Chiefs of Staff commonly come to their CoS roles with many years of professional experience
• The Chief of Staff role may be seen by some as a “jumping off point” to gain experience or explore new skills
• Chiefs of Staff are primarily aligned with top executive leadership and are key organizational stakeholders
• With direct visibility into their CEO/Founder Principals, Chiefs of Staff are well-positioned to move on to executive positions

Total years of professional experience

Role immediately prior to Chief of Staff

🏢 Where Chiefs of Staff Work

Organization size by employee count

The results:

• Most (49%) current Chief of Staff respondents are working at companies with less than 49 employees
• Only 15% of current Chief of Staff respondents are employed at organizations with over 2k employees
• These trends held consistent across professionals who identified as prior, as well as aspiring, Chiefs of Staff

Top takeaways:

• While it’s possible that the Chief of Staff role is more prominent at companies with fewer than 49 employees, these results may also simply reflect the broader Ask a Chief of Staff community and the make-up of our 200+ respondents for this survey
• It is also possible that an equivalent role at larger organizations may be commonly referred to as a title other than Chief of Staff

🛠️ Most-Used Tools

The results:

• Leading the list of most-used tools were Calendar, Email, Project Management, and To-Do lists
• Ticketing, Wikis, Social Media, and CRMs scored as the least-used tools by Chief of Staff respondents

Top takeaways:

• The Chief of Staff role is keenly focused on productivity and time management, as reflected by the most commonly used tools
• While ticketing systems are least commonly used, project management and to-do lists ranking highly suggest that Chiefs of Staff rely on self-directed organization to prioritize tasks

Most commonly used tools

🎯 2025 Top Priorities

The results:

Top takeaways:

These top-scoring priorities indicate Chief of Staff strengths:

1. Strategic Planning and Business Performance = alignment with C-level executives, forward-looking, results-driven, and high-leverage
2. Project Management = cross-functional coordination, timeline tracking, and deliverable quality
3. Organizational Structure = team alignment, reporting clarity, and role definition
4. Productivity & Efficiency = streamlining workflows, automating processes, and reducing bottlenecks
5. Executive Influence = building stakeholder relationships and driving strategic initiatives

⚠️ Top Challenges

The results:

• Disconnected Information tops the list as the #1 most common challenge for current Chiefs of Staff
• Team Accountability, Prioritization, and Burnout are also major friction points

Top takeaways:

• As a master wrangler of stakeholders and information, finding the right company knowledge is a hurdle slowing Chiefs of Staff down
• The high ranking of Team Accountability emphasizes Chief of Staff influence as a driver of strategy and results
• Prioritization and Burnout underscore that Chiefs of Staff are spread thin, juggling many high-visibility projects and deadlines

🧠 Topics of Interest

The results:

• Chiefs of Staff are interested in learning more about Cross-Functional Alignment and Change Management
• Other high-ranking topics of interest are Business Performance, Leadership, and Influencing Executives

Top takeaways:

• These top 2 interests are directly related to previously reported top challenge of Team Accountability and top priority of Project Management, emphasizing the need for Chiefs of Staff to get stakeholders, both principals and cross-functional colleagues, all on the same page
• Professional development was ranked the #1 most important aspect of attending events, which is apparent by the strong interest in so many of these categories of knowledge

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