Blind humility can make you a poor leader.

Humility is often touted as the paramount soft skill for someone who leads, but used incorrectly it can tank morale with your people.

Let me explain.

Humility works *in concert* with self awareness and EQ.

If you're amazing at something, but "humble" about it, you might expect other people to execute that thing at the same level you can.

"If I can do it, why can't they? I'm not any better than them."

Only EQ shapes humility properly.

Knowing yourself well, that you're good at something, and understanding that's what makes you unique.

Not better; unique.

Then using EQ and holding that up against the uniqueness of others - showing them patience and stewardship - helping them to own their own greatness.

- Be humble.
- Recognize where you're great.
- Recognize unique greatness in others.
- Weave that into the tapestry of your team.

That's leadership.

#team #leadership #msp #mssp

#WorkLessDoMore

Don't be a CISO.

What's your advice?

#DontBeaCISO

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/secopswarrior_dontbeaciso-ciso-vciso-activity-7025092080163057665-zXGu

Conventional wisdom says you need to choose between customer value and profits.

I'm here to tell you increasing customer value is the only way you'll spike the profit curve.

- Think like your customer
- Personalize your services
- Stamp out repetitive processes
- Iterate, upgrade, repeat

#WorkLessDoMore

I'm not interested in helping people succeed.

I'm interested in helping them flourish.

Succeed: To accomplish something desired or intended.

Succeeding is great; it's good to set a goal and accomplish it. But it's only part of the smaller picture of a flourishing life. It's single outcome driven.

Flourish: To be in a period of highest productivity, excellence, or influence.

Flourishing is a focus on the desired macro state.

Don't just succeed. Flourish.

#WorkLessDoMore
#leadership #strategy #informationsecurity #cybersecurity

There's a secret to the way I inject effectiveness into a security program.

It's not glamorous. It doesn't require next gen AI.

- Sometimes it means doing really boring, thankless work to track down the why behind an operational process.

- Sometimes it means listening and admitting I made a mistake.

- Sometimes it means I take notes and follow up with folks like I'm their admin assistant.

What's the secret? Attitude.

Try to strip away every piece of extraneous bureaucratic nonsense you can, and push for action. Don't EVER say that's not my job. Find the "thing" that needs to be done, and then do it. Excite others to do the same.

#WorkLessDoMore

Struggling with a contentious topic or personality at work?

Have you:

1️⃣ Asked them to completely explain, and then shut up and listened?
2️⃣ Repeated their position back to them, and asked if you got it right?
3️⃣ Thanked them for helping you understand where they are coming from?

💡 If the situation is too hot, you can always do these three things and use #3 to get some space - "Thanks for helping me understand where you're coming from, let me digest this a bit and let's round up tomorrow on it. what times are open for you?"

If you haven't done these things before trying to get your point across, it probably won't go well.

#business #strategy #leadership

Fair warning - long philosophical post coming 👇

It struck me as I was scrolling LinkedIn this morning, that most professionals in a given sector tend to view that sector as the most important piece to the success of an organization.

Now I'm not throwing shade - you should be passionate about what you do - but there's danger in trying to pigeonhole every business challenge you come across as uniquely solvable by your skillset or product.

It's really just confirmation bias repackaged.

Maybe it's because I've been fortunate to work in several different domains of technology over my career that I have some perspective on this - I've made the mistake of sector groupthink, and then seen it from the outside as I moved to the next domain.

In any case, it occurred to me that this is exactly the same type of problem that teams and departments within an organization fall into. Left unchecked, it can be an insidious "morale eater." Thinking our group is the most misunderstood, the other groups aren't doing what they should be doing, everything gets piled on us, etc., etc.

It's up to the leaders, yes, but it's really on EVERYONE to constantly realign our thinking on the subject, and constantly seek to redirect to a global view of how what we do affects others, and the organization as a whole.

Let's create opportunities to learn that other teams and departments have the same overburdening, same struggles, just in different ways.

TL;DR - let's exercise our EQ muscles in 2023, and encourage others to do the same.

#team #success #leadership #culturetransformation #EQ

"I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else." - G.K. Chesterton

I struggle to be present sometimes. I can't remember where I put my keys 5 minutes ago, but I can remember minute details about process, IP addresses, logical schematics, etc. from literally years in the past.

For better or worse, the above quote sums it up succinctly.

#gkchesterton #cybersecurity #qotd

Viability uncertain, but I quite enjoy reading about James Bond type tech like this.

#business #strategy #riskmanagement #informationsecurity #cybersecurity #leadership

https://www.securityweek.com/earspy-spying-phone-calls-ear-speaker-vibrations-captured-accelerometer