Leon Panetta, President Clinton’s second chief of staff, is widely credited with more effectively regulating the President’s time by forcing the policy and political processes to go through the Office of the Chief of Staff and be screened by the chief before going to the Oval Office. Īt the same time, the chief of staff must protect the president by screening out matters that are not worthy of their time or attention. What has been called the “standard model” of the White House decision making system, based on principles of inclusion and multiple advocacies, operates out of the chief of staff’s office. The directors of other White House units, sometimes with the exception of the national security assistant, are expected to report to and through the chief of staff. The blowback from this was swift and intense, with much of the criticism targeted at Priebus for not preventing the briefing from occurring. COS Reince Priebus discovered this on his first full day in the job when Trump ordered the White House Press Secretary into the press briefing room to exaggerate the size of the inaugural crowd. Chiefs of staff are responsible for the operation of the White House Office and often are blamed if processes fail, much as Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and the Obama White House discovered with the flawed roll-out of. Following recommended best practice, President-elect Joseph Biden’s first appointment was Ron Klain as chief of staff.Īt its most basic, the chief of staff as administrator oversees the White House political and policy processes and manages the president’s time and attention. Trump chafed at being “managed,” yet his White House likely will not be held up as a model for emulation. Since then, President Donald Trump has been an outlier he experimented with a weak chief of staff (Reince Priebus), then turned to a stronger one (John Kelly) before dismissing Kelly and returning to something closer to the spokes-of-the-wheel, albeit with a formal chief of staff as a major spoke (Mick Mulvaney, Mark Meadows). The two finally accepted that having a strong COS was a better option. ![]() Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton went through an initial period in which they relied on a “spokes-of-the-wheel” arrangement, which placed them at the centre of everything. ![]() Some presidents have tried to become deeply involved in the day-to-day running of the White House organization, but most learn that it is not a good use of their time. Most fundamentally, the chief is the manager of the White House. Two roles of chiefs of staff-administrator and guardian-encompass myriad tasks. The chief of staff must frequently say no yet if other staffers are too consistently thwarted, it may dampen their commitment and suggestions of creative ideas and strategies while encouraging competition fueled by personal ambition. Other times, the roles may pull in different directions. For example, effective administration may produce mutually informing flows of advice, while helping guard a president’s scarce time and attention. Neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive, these roles often overlap. We highlight four roles that chiefs typically assume: administrator, guardian, advisor, and proxy. Several major duties have emerged, capturing among them the key responsibilities of chiefs of staff. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF CONTEMPORARY CHIEFS OF STAFFĬonsiderable research has examined the variety of roles that chiefs and their immediate aides perform. In Table One we list the chiefs of staff who have served since the beginning of the Nixon administration. Our role analysis focuses upon the socially defined expectations that persist over time and across presidential administrations. Here, we employ role analysis to focus on the primary roles and activities of chiefs of staff, underscoring their links to presidential governance. Although the job of chief of staff has many common elements across administrations, key differences almost always reflect differing presidential work styles and preferences about how the office – and the presidency – should operate. Scholars have sought to better understand the emergence, evolution, and performance of the post and its supporting office. ![]() The White House chief of staff (COS)-a job first appearing under Dwight Eisenhower-is a critical position that can shape the overall success or failure of a presidency. With that spotlight has come a variety of self-described titles, including Sherman Adams’s “abominable no man” and Jack Watson’s “javelin catcher.” Others have characterized the aides as presidential alter egos, the first among equals on the White House staff, and lightning rods for presidential criticism. presidents have been the source of frequent attention.
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