ICP = Insane Clown Posse, a Detroit hip hop and gangsta rap duo.

ICP = International Center of Photography, a NYC museum and art school.

And now introducing my new favorite ICP…

ICP = Ideal Chief of Staff Profile, the set of values, vision, skills, traits, and experiences that form the best profile of Chief of Staff for a specific leader.

Current Chiefs of Staff and aspiring Chiefs of Staff, read on to learn how I help top executives build the right CoS profile for them.

STEP 1: BUILD LEADER PROFILE

I tell leaders that before you build your ICP, you have to look inward first. You have to complete extensive, honest self-reflection to build your own profile.

I recently completed this exercise since I am on a Quest 2 Find a Co-Founder (Q2FC), which is remarkably similar to finding a Chief of Staff. See below:

MACKENZIE LEE’S PROFILE

🔵 Values - Humanity, Service to Others, Learning & Teaching, Growth, Creativity & Justice

🔵 Work/Life Vision - Flexibility, Variation, Balance, Autonomy, Education, Community, Arts

🔵 Work Habits - High work ethic, Deep work, Sprints/rest periods, Async, Modern tools

🔵 Skills - GTM, Comms, Marketing, Strategy, Legal

🔵 Traits - Spontaneous, Sociable, Charismatic, Creative, Talkative, Curious, Conscientious, Agreeable, Enthusiastic, Self-Sufficient, Honest, Optimistic, Comfortable in my own skin

🔵 Experiences - Music, Athletics, Cooking, Silicon Valley, NYC, France, LGBT, Asian-American, Chief of Staff, GTM, Design Thinking, Investments, Management Consulting, C-Suite, Startups, PE Companies, Fortune 3000, B2B, Content Creation, Social Media, Solopreneur

It took me about 8 hours total to pull this together.

I drew from past exercises with my life coach, online personality quizzes, my Guide to Working with Me, and deep reflection about my past life/work experiences.

STEP 2: BUILD IDEAL CHIEF OF STAFF PROFILE

After leaders get to know themselves and can stare at their profile on paper, I guide them through the process of creating an Ideal Chief of Staff Profile.

Again, drawing from my own exercise in finding a co-founder, here’s my Ideal Co-Founder Profile, which should give you a sense of how I advise top execs on creating their Ideal Chief of Staff Profile.

MACKENZIE’S ICP

🟢 Values - Ideally some overlap with mine, but also important to have unique differences

🟢 Work/Life Vision - Same as above

🟢 Work Habits - Same as above

🟢 Skills - Operations, HR, IT, Product, Tech

🟢 Traits - Ordered, Rational, Introverted, Execution Oriented, Skeptical, Self-Sufficient, Honest, Emotionally Buoyant, Comfortable in their own skin

🟢 Experiences - Track record in serving C-Suite, Focus on executive enablement, Chief of Staff, Relationships with senior decision makers, Success scaling companies, B2B, Content Creation, Services, Partnerships, Community Development, Talent Management, Ability to commit right now, Financial stability, History of working together

I built the Skills and Traits sections by asking myself, how can I complement my own profile?

For the Experiences section, I thought about what I need to achieve my vision for Cedar that I wrote about 2 days ago.

So there you have it, the best practice that I use to help leaders build their own profile and their Ideal Chief of Staff Profile.

Aspirings Chiefs of Staff or Chiefs of Staff on the job, see if you can build yours and that of your leader to understand where you might add more value to the partnership.

Do you have what it takes to be a high performing Chief of Staff?

Take our free 360º Performance Assessment - a Typeform of 70 self-evaluative questions that tells you exactly what development areas you need to address to be a successful Chief of Staff job seeker or high performer on the job.

Click here to begin your Assessment. You’ll get a 360º Performance Scorecard that identifies problem spots in a color-coded heatmap.

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