EA vs Chief of Staff: what is the difference?

An Executive Assistant’s remit is the leader: their time, their day and everything that has to be right for them to do their job. A Chief of Staff’s remit is the leader’s organisation: the priorities, the people and the projects that decide whether the leader’s plan actually happens. The two roles work closely alongside one another and are measured on completely different things.

I have recruited Executive Assistants for over a decade and worked on Chief of Staff briefs for the last five years through our sister company, the recruitment business Lily Shippen. The question I am asked most often, by EAs and by the leaders hiring them, is where one role ends and the other begins. Here is the honest answer, including the places where the line is blurred on purpose.

The difference at a glance

What the EA owns that the Chief of Staff does not

The diary, the travel, the inbox and the leader’s preparation for each day are the EA’s, and in a well-run office they stay that way. This is not lesser work. Protecting a chief executive’s time is one of the most leveraged jobs in any organisation, and the best EAs do it with a level of judgement that no process could replace. They know who gets ten minutes and who gets a polite no, which meeting can move and which cannot, and what their leader needs to have read before walking into the room. A Chief of Staff who starts doing this work is no longer doing their own.

What the Chief of Staff owns that the EA does not

The leadership rhythm, the projects that cut across functions and the follow-through on decisions once the meeting has ended. The Chief of Staff makes sure a priority the leader stated once actually lands in the right teams, in the right order, and comes back with what is blocking it. They own the restructure, the investor round, the integration or the office move that has no natural home. They prepare the leader for difficult conversations with a view on who will object and why. For a fuller picture, read What does a Chief of Staff actually do?

Where the line blurs, and where it should not

The best EAs already do a good deal of what I have just described. They anticipate, they brief, they manage stakeholders and they hold the leader’s confidence. Some organisations recognise this with a title such as Executive Business Partner or Strategic EA, and that is often the most accurate description of what the person does. The blur is fine. The problem starts when the blur is used as a shortcut.

A Chief of Staff is not a senior EA. When the title is handed to an excellent EA as a promotion, with the same desk, the same remit and a new line on the business card, it usually fails. The EA work still needs doing, so they keep doing it. The Chief of Staff work needs an authority nobody has given them. The person ends up overstretched and under-recognised, and the leader concludes that the role does not work. The same thing happens when a job advert asks for an “EA/Chief of Staff” hybrid. It is almost always a senior EA role with a strategy paragraph attached, and the person who takes it will be doing two jobs for one salary.

Pay

Chief of Staff roles we see through our sister company, Lily Shippen, mostly sit between around £70,000 and well over £100,000, depending on the size of the organisation, the seniority of the leader and location, with London and the South East at the top. Senior EA pay in the same organisation usually sits below that, although the very best EAs in FTSE 100 chief executive offices often overlap with the bottom of the Chief of Staff range. The gap reflects accountability rather than hours. Both roles work hard. Only one is accountable for outcomes across the business.

Is one the next step from the other?

For some EAs, yes. The groundwork is there and the move is natural. For many others it is not, and they are right to stay. The Chief of Staff role is more exposed, more political and less defined, and it means trading a craft you have mastered for one you learn in public. Treat it as a different job you might want, not as the top of the EA ladder. We set out what the move actually involves in How do I move from EA to Chief of Staff?

How they work best together

As a pair, with a written split. The EA protects the leader’s time. The Chief of Staff protects the leader’s agenda. Both anticipate, both manage access, both speak for the leader in different rooms, so without a written agreement about who owns the diary, who runs the leadership meeting and who carries messages to the rest of the business, they will duplicate effort or step on each other. Agree it before either person starts, and revisit it when the leader’s priorities change.

Where to start

If you are an EA wondering which side of the line you want to be on, our Chief of Staff Readiness Assessment gives you a scored, written answer: a structured assessment led by an experienced assessor, scored out of 300 across the capabilities that decide whether a Chief of Staff succeeds, for £149 plus VAT. If you want to grow within the EA role, our EA and PA training is built for exactly that. If you are a leader deciding which role you need, book a free 30-minute Discovery Call and we will tell you honestly, including when the answer is both, as two people. Our sister brand The Core Standard has also written a buyer’s guide for employers, Chief of Staff or Executive Assistant: which one are you actually hiring?, including how to assess for each role.

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