Why More CEOs Are Taking a “Try Before You Hire” Approach to Leadership
The best hiring decisions I've seen CEOs make are the decisions where they slowed down, focused on being intentional, and built the conditions for success before making a permanent commitment.
This process is especially essential when selecting a candidate for the chief of staff role.
By the time a CEO is sourcing a CoS, they already know they need strategic support. The operational demands of a scaling business are pulling them out of the work only they can do. So they rush to hire. They find someone good , sometimes even great, and then watch their hire underperform anyway.
The person may have had all the right skills, but the infrastructure they walked into wasn’t ready for them.
A chief of staff can only be as effective as the system they're operating inside. If there's no operating rhythm, no shared language, no clear line between what the CEO owns and what can be delegated, even the most talented CoS is building on sand.
That's why the "try before you buy" model is one of the smartest moves a CEO can make.
A fractional chief of staff engagement gives you something invaluable: time to build the foundation before you fill the seat permanently. The right fractional CoS comes in, establishes the operating cadence, creates the structures your leadership team needs, and gives you an honest view of what the full-time role should actually look like.
We see the benefits of fractional engagements play out every day at Vannin Chief of Staff. One recent engagement proved to be a powerful example of the impact this model can create.We had an executive client come in with a clear vision for where his company needed to go. His leadership team was strong. But everyone, including him, needed structure and an operating rhythm to execute at the level the company required. He wasn't ready to commit to a permanent hire without understanding exactly what that hire should look like.
So he brought on a fractional CoS for nine months.
That fractional chief of staff built the company’s leadership operating system from the ground up, establishing weekly leadership cadence, clarifying accountability across the team, and creating the structure needed for consistent execution. During this period, the firm experienced its strongest profitability to date while preparing for its first full time COO.
By the time they were ready to bring on a full-time COO, she ran a structured two-week transition, and the incoming hire stepped into a functioning system instead of a blank slate.
The fractional model works because it gives both sides the space to learn. The CEO learns what they actually need in the role. The organization learns how to work with a strategic partner at that level. And the transition, when it comes, is clean, because the infrastructure is already there to hand off.
If you're feeling the pull toward hiring a chief of staff, but you're not sure what the role should look like in your specific context, that uncertainty is worth listening to.
It doesn't mean you're not ready for a chief of staff. Instead, you may be ready to try before you buy.
