There is a very specific kind of organizational folklore that gets passed down like an heirloom casserole dish nobody actually likes but everyone feels obligated to serve at holidays: the belief that there is exactly one seat near power with “woman” stamped on the underside, and if you don’t fight for it like it’s the last lifeboat on the Titanic, you will be condemned to a professional life of being described as “so helpful” right before your ideas are credited to a man named Greg who hasn’t opened the doc since Tuesday.
And look—before anyone runs to the comments with a torch made of LinkedIn buzzwords—this isn’t about women being “too cautious” or “not confident enough” or “needing to think bigger.” Scarcity is not a motivational poster problem. Scarcity is a structural design choice that has been disguised as a personality flaw. You don’t “mindset” your way out of a system that has spent decades building narrow hallways, locking the doors, and then asking you why you didn’t take the stairs.
If you’ve spent any amount of time around the Chief of Staff world, you’ve seen it: the role that is simultaneously positioned as a strategic force-multiplier and treated like a mystical creature that can only exist once per organization, like a corporate unicorn that must be fed executive secrets and calendar invites or it will stop producing impact.
The unspoken rule has been: there will be one woman close to power. Compete for her job. Not because women naturally love competition, but because the system engineered a bottleneck and then acted surprised when people started elbowing each other in the doorway.
So let’s talk about what this actually looks like—then let’s talk about how to fix it without telling women to “just be abundant,” as if abundance is something you can download in a webinar replay.
The CoS Role as a Fog Machine (Now With Bonus Mystery Duties)
The Chief of Staff role, in too many organizations, is defined the way people define “business casual”: everyone has opinions, nobody agrees, and you only find out you’re wrong once you’ve shown up wearing the exact thing they hate.
The posting (if it exists at all) reads like an incantation. “Strategic operator.” “Trusted advisor.” “Right hand.” “Quarterback.” “Air traffic controller.” Which is corporate-speak for: we need someone who can do everything, anticipate everything, absorb everything, and never make it weird.
And that’s the first scarcity trap: vague role definitions keep power concentrated because ambiguity is an excellent security system. When the job is unclear, the value is hard to measure. When the value is hard to measure, the role becomes dependent on proximity and perception. And when the role is dependent on proximity and perception, it becomes a one-seat monarchy.
Then there’s the “development path,” which is often just a hallway that ends abruptly at a locked door labeled: “Support the principal harder.” You can be brilliant, build systems, scale operations, make the executive office run like a Swiss watch, and still be treated like a particularly advanced assistant who should be grateful to sit quietly near the fireplace of power.
And finally, the “special snowflake” assumption: the CoS is treated like a rare personality type rather than a repeatable function. Meaning the organization doesn’t build the role—it finds a person and then clutches them like a family secret.
If the CoS role can only exist once, it becomes a bottleneck. And bottlenecks don’t create leadership pipelines. They create audition culture.
The “Only One Woman Near Power” Problem (A Corporate Antique That Won’t Die)
Here’s where things get especially toxic, because scarcity doesn’t just limit opportunity—it trains behavior.
When women have learned, through experience, that only one seat is available, collaboration becomes risky. Mentorship becomes complicated. Being generous can feel like handing someone the only umbrella in a storm when you’re still getting rained on yourself.
Not because women are petty. Not because women are “not supporting women.” But because the environment has conditioned them to believe that another woman’s rise is a direct threat, not a collective gain.
Meanwhile, the system sits back and narrates the whole thing like a nature documentary:
“Observe the females of the corporate ecosystem. Notice how they compete for limited resources. Fascinating. Surely this is biological.”
No, Susan. It’s architectural.
And the CoS seat is one of the most potent examples because it is close enough to power to taste it, but often not structured enough to distribute it. The CoS is expected to understand strategy, influence, decision-making, and executive dynamics, yet frequently denied clear authority, clear growth, and clear ownership—creating the perfect storm: high responsibility, low clarity, and a single slot everyone has been trained to fight for.
Which means scarcity isn’t just happening to women—it’s being replicated through the role design itself.
How to Turn the CoS Seat Into a Leadership Engine (Instead of a Bottleneck with a Fancy Title)
Here’s the good news: the opportunity is right in front of us, and it doesn’t require anyone to “manifest abundance” while quietly updating the org chart with their tears.
If you want to turn the Chief of Staff function into one of the most effective engines for diversifying the C-suite, the solution is not “tell women to stop being scarce.” The solution is: remove the scarcity.
Standardize what the role actually is.
Not in a way that strips nuance, but in a way that creates shared language: core responsibilities, decision rights, success metrics, and the difference between “executive office ops” and “strategic execution leadership.” When the role is legible, more people can see themselves in it. When more people can see themselves in it, the pipeline stops being a secret club.
Build multiple CoS roles in large organizations.
One CoS in a complex org is like one customer service rep for the entire internet. It’s not strategy. It’s suffering. Create CoS roles by function, by division, by transformation initiative. Build the bench. Make “Chief of Staff” a pathway, not a lottery.
Reward documentation, teaching, and mentorship.
If the organization celebrates the CoS who “knows everything” but never transfers knowledge, it incentivizes hoarding. If it celebrates the CoS who builds systems, trains successors, and develops operators who can step into executive leadership, it turns the role into a multiplier. This is where men and women together can shift the culture: proximity to power should come with responsibility to widen the door.
And if you’re a CEO, President, ED, EVP, or Chief of Staff, the questions are painfully simple:
Are you operating as if only a handful of people are capable of this work?
Or are you building a community of strategic operators who can lead, scale, and eventually take the seat you’re currently guarding like it’s the last donut in the break room?
Because the best executive offices aren’t powered by one heroic figure doing interpretive dance with chaos. They’re powered by systems and talent density—so leadership becomes replicable, not mythical.
Final Thoughts: Stop Asking Women to Think Abundant in a Scarce System
The scarcity mindset isn’t “killing women in business” because women are mentally weak. It’s killing women because the system keeps handing them a single chair, two resumes, and a polite smile that says, “Only one of you gets to stay.”
So yes—challenge of the month: create one opportunity for another woman to get closer to the C-suite. But don’t make it a vague “you should network more” thing. Make it concrete, and say the quiet part out loud:
“I’m doing this because I don’t believe there should be only one seat near power.”
“I’m doing this because I want you to see how decisions get made.”
“I’m doing this because leadership should scale—and so should access.”
And if you’re reading this while currently sitting in or near that CoS seat, clutching it a little because you worked hard for it and you’re tired and you’ve earned your proximity: you’re not the villain.
But you can be the builder.
Because the moment the role stops being a bottleneck and starts being a pipeline is the moment scarcity loses its grip—and power becomes something we understand, teach, and expand, instead of something we quietly survive.
