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Building CEO trust when you’re remote

It’s hard enough operating in the Office of the CEO as a remote Chief of Staff or Executive Assistant. But if you don’t take active steps to foster trust, then your job can get even harder.

How do you do this effectively? And how do you maintain CEO trust once you’ve got it?Follow the 6 steps below to create trust with your CEO in a virtual setting.

1. Set up regular communication channels

Schedule regular check-ins to discuss work product, feedback, and any concerns. Choose communication channels and cadence that works best for both of you, ie email, Zoom, Slack, Loom, and voice memos. You must be constantly visible to your CEO.

2. Be proactive

Take the initiative to communicate with your CEO, even if they don't reach out to you first. Remind them that you are there. Batch your communications so you aren’t pinging them too often. Get ahead of problems by suggesting a few solutions and your preferred plan of attack. Even better is if you’ve already solved the problem and you’re reporting back on how you did it. It’s music to your CEO’s ears, for example, if you can tell them that you saved a strategic customer from churning by fixing a bug in your product.

3. Get to know your CEO

Insist on more in-person interactions during onboarding to build trust faster. Suggest regular quarterly in-person check ins. Ask your CEO questions about their life outside of work. Read up on their biography. Understand what personal values they hold. Have them create a personal user manual - a "Guide to Working with Me" - to better understand their working style.

4. Focus on results

Make sure you're communicating your progress and results efficiently and effectively. Provide regular updates on your work and highlight your achievements. Bullet formats and weekly scorecards with RAG status work best for fast communication. Deliver above and beyond expectations, while evidencing risks and blockers ahead of time.

5. Show empathy

Acknowledge that your CEO may also be struggling with the remote setting. Offer support and ask if there is anything you can do to help them to deal with working with distributed teams. Share your best practices and suggest new solutions to help them deal with teams who are non-colocated. This could be regular walks to break up the workday, investing in an ergonomic home office setup and regular use of asynchronous communications channels.

6. Serve as a trusted confidante

Allow your CEO to come to you with sticky situations and issues that they otherwise wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with the rest of their executive team. Take an active listening role and offer solutions only if asked. Play an executive coaching role by suggesting common-sense approaches to problems.

There you have it - 6 steps to building trust with your CEO in a remote setting.

Chief of Staff Jobs

Welcome to our Chief of Staff job board. If you have a Chief of Staff job you’d like shared to 2,500+ readers of this newsletter or need hands-on recruiting help to hire your Chief of Staff, reply to this email.

Engagement Manager / de facto Chief of Staff, Cedar, NYC or EST Time Zone, Professional Services

Sr Consultant, Cedar, EMEA, Professional Services

Principal Chief of Staff, Capital One, McLean, VA, Bank Holding, Corporate

Chief of Staff, Independence Pet Group, New York, NY, Insurance, Corporate

Chief of Staff, Spark Car Wash, Summit, NJ, Startup

Chief of Staff, BoomerangFX, Mississauga, ON, Tech, Startup

Chief of Staff, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, DC, Coalition

Help Us Grow

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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for next week’s edition.

Until next week,

Mackenzie

Mackenzie Lee | Founder & CEO
M: 650.283.4152 | E: [email protected]
New York City, NY
www.CedarChief.com

At Cedar, we turn executives into fast and fearless leaders.

Thanks to technology, changing markets, and demanding investors, the C-suite job is tougher than ever. We help executives find freedom from blockers and busywork.

Our mission is to help 1 million CEOs and their C-suite teams let go and do more of the things that matter. We help you hire a Chief of Staff, build an Office of the CEO, and implement C-suite operating systems.

On average our clients see a 25% meeting reduction, 20% strategic sales increase, and 2x speed-to-execution in their first 90 days with us. Data is continuously analyzed to improve performance and accelerate growth.