The Right Hand

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The Social Reckoning arrived in theaters earlier this month. Aaron Sorkin’s new film is the story of a whistleblower who helped expose the harmful effects of Facebook’s social media platforms. Mark Zuckerberg appears in the film, surrounded by lawyers and advisors as he struggles to defend the company he created. But there’s one person conspicuously absent from the story. Sheryl Sandberg never appears.

Sandberg was Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer throughout the period depicted in the film. She joined the company in 2008, when Zuckerberg was just 23 years old, and spent fourteen years helping turn a promising social network into one of the most successful businesses in history. She developed its management culture, and guided Zuckerberg through the enormous challenges of running a company whose products reached billions of people around the world.

When Sandberg announced her departure in 2022, Zuckerberg published a remarkably personal tribute. He credited her with teaching him how to run a company. He thanked her for supporting him through important moments in his personal life. He called her an extraordinary leader, partner, and friend, and said that their partnership had always been deeper than business. He also acknowledged that he couldn’t simply replace her with another executive. Sandberg had occupied a place in his life that no organizational chart could adequately describe.

Sheryl Sandberg was Facebook’s COO. But more importantly, she was also Mark Zuckerberg’s Right Hand.

The Right Hand

Every leader needs people to help them succeed. They need colleagues who bring different abilities and perspectives, and capable executives who can turn decisions into action. But there’s a particular kind of relationship that goes much deeper. A Right Hand is someone who understands a leader’s ambitions and intentions so thoroughly that they can help that person do their own job better. They know how a leader thinks and what matters most to them. Over time, they become an extension of their leader’s own judgment and abilities. Sometimes, they’re explicitly a CEO’s chief of staff. Other times, they simply embody the role independent of any title.

A Right Hand can make an extraordinary difference to what a leader accomplishes. They anticipate what’s needed and make decisions on their behalf. They understand which matters deserve the leader’s attention and which can be resolved without them. They connect people, translate ideas into action, and help the organization understand where its leader is trying to go. Some of their most important work happens so quietly that nobody else knows they’ve done it.

A great Right Hand can offer a perspective that can be sorely lacking. As leaders become more powerful, the people around them become more careful about what they say. Bad news gets softened. Disagreements disappear before they reach the top. A Right Hand can tell the leader what’s actually going on. And somewhere along the way, a CEO and their Right Hand develop a shared understanding that allows them to speak with unusual candor, knowing that a disagreement won’t threaten the relationship.

But a Right Hand’s most important contributions come from how well they know the person they’re supporting. They’ve spent enough time together to recognize the leader’s habits, contradictions, and occasional blind spots. They remember decisions that felt right in the moment but became sources of regret later. And when a leader is about to do something rash, they’re the person who can say, “We can do that, but you’re not going to be happy later. You’re going to wonder what you were thinking.” They understand what their leader wants, but they also understand what the leader will wish they’d wanted.

Disney CEO Bob Iger had that kind of relationship with Zenia Mucha, his longtime Chief Communications Officer. In his memoir, The Ride of a Lifetime, Iger describes Mucha as someone who had been beside him through good times and bad, and who could tell him directly when she thought he was making a mistake.

In June 2016, Iger was in Shanghai preparing to open Disney’s first theme park in mainland China. It was the culmination of nearly two decades of work, and one of the proudest moments of his career. Then terrible news arrived from Orlando. A two-year-old boy had been killed by an alligator at Walt Disney World.

Iger was devastated. Early the next morning, he met Mucha in the hotel lounge. He wanted to issue a statement expressing his grief. She helped him put his thoughts into words, and Disney released the statement fifteen minutes later.

But returning to his hotel room, Iger couldn’t get the family out of his mind. He called Mucha again. He wanted to speak personally with the boy’s parents. Iger expected some resistance. The company was facing a terrible tragedy that could have enormous legal consequences, and Disney’s lawyers would have good reasons to be cautious about what its CEO might say.

Mucha understood. She knew Bob as a father and grandfather, and understood how deeply the tragedy had affected him. Within minutes, she had arranged a call with the boy’s father. It was an agonizing conversation. Afterward, Iger sat on the edge of his bed, overcome with grief. Then he gathered himself up and went out to open the new Disneyland.

Iger had spent years making consequential decisions with Zenia Mucha at his side. She knew his strengths and shortcomings. She understood the responsibilities he carried. And she was never afraid to disagree with him. On that morning in Shanghai, she understood why speaking to a grieving family mattered so much to him. She helped him reconcile what his position required with what his conscience demanded.

Relationships like that develop an intimacy that extends beyond the ordinary boundaries of professional life. Two people develop their own language, their own shorthand, and a shared ability to recognize what the other person is thinking without them having to ask. They’ve spent years looking out for each other, often in ways nobody else ever gets to see.

The Hand with a Thousand Faces

Depending on their role, a Right Hand can have a very different title. Sometimes they’re explicitly a Chief of Staff, hired to work alongside a CEO. Steve Beard, the CEO of Covista, has hired multiple Chiefs of Staff over the years, deliberately choosing people with different backgrounds as his priorities have changed. His first chief of staff specialized in finance, the second in strategy, and the third in technology.

Many times, a Right Hand doesn’t have a Chief of Staff title. They can be the head of communications, like Zenia Mucha. At The Container Store, Audrey Robertson spent years working with founder Kip Tindell. The Container Store had been built around a distinctive set of beliefs about a company’s responsibilities to employees, customers, and society at large. Audrey helped Kip clarify and communicate those beliefs to the wider world. Her responsibilities were rooted in communications, but her work depended on understanding the ideas and aspirations of the person leading the company.

Sometimes, the Right Hand comes from government relations. Vivek Varma worked closely with Howard Schultz at Starbucks, helping him navigate the intersection of business, public policy, and social responsibility. Howard believed Starbucks could demonstrate how a successful company could make a positive contribution to society, and Vivek helped turn those convictions into action. Today, Vivek leads the Schultz Family Foundation, helping Howard and Sheri Schultz pursue their ambitions to create greater opportunity for people across America.

When the relationship is deep, the title can seem almost incidental. When John F. Kennedy became president, he appointed his younger brother Bobby to be Attorney General. But Bobby occupied a far more intimate place in the president’s life. He had managed John’s presidential campaign, understood his political instincts, and could challenge him in ways few other advisors would dare. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby became one of the president’s most trusted confidants. Then he served as a secret intermediary with the Soviet ambassador, carrying messages and exploring a path toward a peaceful resolution.

Each of these relationships takes a different form. A Chief of Staff helps a leader coordinate the organization and turn priorities into action. A communications executive helps articulate the leader’s thinking and give voice to their ambitions. A public affairs leader helps them engage with the wider world. And sometimes, as with Bobby Kennedy, the relationship is so personal that the formal title barely begins to describe it. Whatever their title, a Right Hand has to be an extension of how a leader thinks and acts. That’s different from a Co-Pilot.

Right Hands and Co-Pilots

Rather than extending a leader’s abilities, a Co-Pilot brings complementary strengths to an organization. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger spent decades building Berkshire Hathaway together, each contributing different perspectives to their investment decisions. At Amazon, Jeff Bezos relied on Jeff Wilke to build and operate the company’s enormous consumer business. Both Munger and Wilke brought skills that complemented those of their partners.

A Right Hand isn’t complementary so much as interconnected. They’re deeply involved in helping the leader perform the leader’s own role. They understand the leader’s mind and intentions so thoroughly that they can anticipate decisions, represent their judgment, and help them recognize when they’re about to make a mistake.

When a Co-Pilot leaves, it can feel like having to build an entirely new team. Responsibilities shift and capabilities have to be replaced. But losing a Right Hand can feel more like an amputation. Someone who has become an extension of your own judgment and abilities is suddenly gone. Like a phantom limb, you find yourself instinctively reaching for them, wanting to share a thought, or ask a question. Only then do you realize how deeply another person has become woven into the way you live and work.

Jumping in the Hole

There’s an interesting irony in Aaron Sorkin’s decision to leave Sheryl Sandberg out of The Social Reckoning. After all, Sorkin created one of television’s most memorable Right Hands. Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff in The West Wing, knew President Jed Bartlet for years. He understood his ambitions, his values, and his contradictions. He could challenge him in ways few other people would dare. Their relationship was filled with arguments and no small amount of affection. When Bartlet needed someone to tell him the truth, Leo was usually the person to do it.

There’s a particularly telling moment when Leo speaks with Josh Lyman, a senior White House aide who has been struggling in the aftermath of a traumatic experience. Leo tells Josh a story.

A man is walking down the street when he falls into a deep hole. The walls are so steep that he can’t climb out. A doctor passes by, and the man calls for help. The doctor writes a prescription, tosses it into the hole, and continues on his way. A priest comes along, and the man asks him for help, too. The priest writes a prayer, throws it down, and walks away. Finally, a friend passes by. The man calls up to him, and the friend jumps into the hole. The man can’t believe it. Now they’re both stuck down there. But his friend explains, “I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

The hardest parts of leadership rarely happen in public. They happen in quiet offices after everyone else has gone home, in conversations before sunrise, and in the hours when a difficult decision seems impossible to make. There are responsibilities that ultimately rest on one person’s shoulders, and moments when even the most capable leaders can’t quite see the way forward. Over the years, some of us have been fortunate enough to develop relationships with people who understand what we’re carrying, because they’ve been carrying part of it with us.

Leadership will always require courage, judgment, and a willingness to venture into unfamiliar territory. There will be times when the way forward is uncertain, and times when the ground gives way entirely. It makes an enormous difference to have someone who understands you well enough to know when you’re in trouble, and cares about you deeply enough to climb down beside you.

Someone who knows the way out.