Summary: This text outlines key attributes to evaluate when interviewing candidates for security leadership roles. It emphasizes the importance of curiosity, influence, moral courage, critical thinking, strategic mindset, and team-building skills. Interviewers should look for evidence of these qualities through specific questions and examples from the candidates’ experiences.
Assess whether the candidate looks at the root cause of the root cause. (View Highlight)
• So, ask the candidate to discuss how they influence directly or build networks of influence over time. (View Highlight)
Look for what roles the candidate thinks are their most important internal relationships. (View Highlight)
Have the candidate describe a plan of action to advocate for significant change or investment - have them give examples of success, failure and consequent course correction. (View Highlight)
Aside from some massively obvious quick wins, we’re all pretty dangerous in the first 90 days until you’ve learnt the environment. (View Highlight)
Ask what are examples where the candidate has held their position on vital matters against a ground-swell of different opinio (View Highlight)
Ask for examples of how they deal with conflict and subsequently repair relationships and what this has taught them about relationship building to reduce the need for overt conflict when having difficult conversatio (View Highlight)
No-one, repeat no-one, has managed all their crises, incidents and other events in a perfect way. There’s learning in all of them and if the candidate can’t be honest about what they’ve learnt along the way then they’ve not really done the things. (View Highlight)
what are the best examples where they decided something needed to be done and relentlessly pushed for that? (View Highlight)
What techniques has the candidate used to seize opportunities? Some good examples here are when people maintain a portfolio of “shovel-ready” projects to get going on in the event of a crisis-driven (hopefully external to the organization) opportunity to clinch the commitment. (View Highlight)
Press the candidate on the different ways they can identify system-wide leverage points - is it what can have the biggest deployment spread first, the approach that wins the most “hearts and minds”, or that which pays down the most specific risk for the most critical assets? (View Highlight)
Ask how they keep up to date, what they read, do they tinker with stuff at home, and when some new technology emerges how do they determine what to think about it and how do they at least get some passing familiarity with it. (View Highlight)
Great teams don’t arise from magical intuition, they come from doing stuff. What’s the stuff this leader has done and how do they know what and when to adapt to the situation and team they have. (View Highlight)
security leadership positions at all levels are some of the most challenging roles there are. Assess candidates thoroughly - not just by asking questions and looking for good answers but fundamentally looking at the thinking patterns and cultural outlook of the candidate. (View Highlight)