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Leadership Essay

Leadership and Competencies

By: Stephen Northcutt

Source: SANS Technology Institute

What does leadership mean, how do you measure leadership? One approach is through management and leadership competencies. We define competencies as measurable skills, knowledge, and abilities that identify successful managers in the information security discipline. In your graduate program, you will be exposed to core competencies. They are covered in your required course, ISE 5600: IT Security Leadership Competencies or ISM 5400: IT Security Planning, Policy, and Leadership. Some of the competencies that you will be taught are reinforced by specific course work and exercises:

  • Team Development and Relationship Building: This will occur when you attend a SANS conference and interact with fellow students, and as a result of both of your group projects.

  • Importance of Communication: The presentation skills course, ISE/ISM 5000 (SANS MGT 305), will help you develop your oral and written communication skills.

  • Self-Direction: We will monitor your progress throughout the program, but it will be up to you to register for and complete courses within the allowed time at a proper level of quality.

  • Coaching and Training: One of your final degree requirements will be to teach a Security Awareness course in your own community.

  • Leadership Qualities: The faculty you will work with are leaders in the field of information security. Look to them to model leadership in the information security field.

  • Vision Development: As a graduate student, you will be required to present original, creative work through the research papers.

  • Project Planning: You will learn about Project Management Planning in ISE/ISM 5800 (SANS MGT 525) and a project plan is a requirement of one of the group projects.

Other competencies listed below will be taught in your required courses:

  • Conflict Resolution

  • Employee Involvement

  • Change Management

  • Motivation of Employees and Teammates

  • Leadership Development

  • Leading Tribes

  • Brainstorming

  • Leading Change

Two competencies are more important than all the others. How does a leader guide or inspire? They have to be great communicators. Therefore, two of the most important skills you will work on are:

  • Ability to communicate well orally

  • Ability to communicate well in writing

Leaders in information assurance often have different goals. Some leadership roles in information security are similar to other disciplines, others are unique. A few examples of security leadership roles are listed below:

  • Manager, team leader or project manager

  • The technical “go to” person

  • Thought leader, often through writing and speaking

  • Instructor, mentor

  • Tribe leader, someone that can build a large following to accomplish a goal

  • Change Agent, someone who uses their thought leadership position to alter the way we look at technology or process

  • Technical tool author who creates or leads the team that develops a security tool whether open source or commercial

What is the difference between a manager and a leader? A successful leader needs all of the same competencies as a manager, but some of the competencies must be more developed. For instance, vision. You can be a successful manager with a minimal capability for vision. In fact, that is something Human Resources may look for in an industry that is based on repeatable tasks. However, you cannot lead without vision. The Security Thought Leaders interview series introduces a number of visionary leaders in the information assurance industry. In addition, you must have power beyond your positional power, the authority that comes with your role or job description. For many students in the MSISE program, this will lead to something called expert power [1] people will want to be on your team partly because of your knowledge of technical security. Our goal is for you to be able to work at the highest technical level in your organization. The students in the MSISM program will also receive courses and assignments to develop expert power, people will want to work with you because they feel that you have both programmatic skills and a strong understanding of technical issues. They will look for you to be a bridge between management and technical groups in your organization.

Senior Leadership and Statesmanship

One reason to start focusing on your leadership skills today is that leadership is learned over years, not months. The best way to become a senior leader is by studying competencies and having the discipline to make them become habits and tools in your life. We can define a senior leader as someone who attains a highly respected rank, examples include:

  • CEO, CTO, CSO, CISO

  • Board member, Chairman of the Board

  • President, Vice President

  • Bishop, Cardinal

  • Mayor, Senator, Representative

Perhaps the highest level of leadership is the statesman, a respected leader in national or international affairs, a person that devotes some or all of their energy to public service and to improve the common good. They have mastered the management, leadership and governance competencies and use the experience from a long and respected career to benefit others.