Cybersecurity Talent: Failing Is An Option But Choose An Alternative

Anytime we discuss talent, including cybersecurity talent, we must discuss failing.

Boo hiss you say. That's not nice or fun.

Watching someone flail around awkwardly in their job is painful at a human level. 

Look, not everyone is cut out to have a cybersecurity career. Just because you majored in cybersecurity or computer science does not mean you are employable in that role. Just because you were a code jockey doesn't mean you are a Great Leader.

Let's explore what that means and what the implications are.

Individual Contributor

There are a lot of employment options for someone who majored in a cyber-related field in college, or who worked with computer systems in the military. The biggest issue you need to overcome as a newbie is that this field is changing sometimes daily. The second biggest issue is that you need to work with other people, some of whom are unpleasant or bad at their jobs. The third biggest issue is that your leaders may themselves not be very good at their jobs, and that trickles down to you. Finally, your organization is constantly asking something different from you.

All of these suggest finding something "fun" in what you do, then building that out. This is the 'rage to master' piece we keep writing about. Maybe you like red-teaming. Maybe you like the AI part of the job. Maybe you want to get into niche areas such as insider threat or counter-terrorism. Maybe you decide that you want to go into management.

Whatever it is you need to keep moving through your cybersecurity career. You cannot stay static or expect that your career will be linear. 

Be comfortable with disruption.

Manager

Why did you go into management? Was it for the money (of course it was for the money) or did you decide you were done with the daily individual contributor work? 

You've found that you need to build teams. You need to liaise with non-tech leaders. You need to coordinate your programs with executive leadership. 

You've also found that now you need to 'rage to master' your leadership growth. This will not be easy. You might derail. You might have difficulty creating employee engagement. You may find that doing performance reviews is too stressful, and the juice ain't worth the squeeze. You may focus on your strengths only to find that you didn't mitigate your limitations and that means you...fail.

Both

You might ask whether you can be 'fixed' instead of failing. Here are three options. Spoiler alert: these sound easy but they take work. Whether you do the work is up to you.

First, you need to be honest with yourself: suppose 'they' are causing 80% of the trouble you're having building a team, managing your career, etc. That means you are responsible for 20% of the trouble you're having. What can you do on your end inside that 20%?

Second, you need to get a coach (human or AI) and listen to the feedback you get. Let's underscore that: LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK YOU GET. I wouldn't emphasize this if I didn't have to, because people are BAD AT LISTENING TO FEEDBACK. Dr Brett Steenbarger & I co-wrote a blog posting on his site years ago in which I referred to people's normal reaction, especially managers, as 'DADA': Deflect, Attack, Deny, Avoid. The best managers I've worked with -- I'd put that proportion of all managers at 20% -- don't like the feedback but they incorporate it and grow from it. The rest? DADA. So...are you going to listen?

By the way: if you are giving feedback or want some inside baseball on feedback in general, I recommend this book by Sandra Mashihi & Ken Nowack.

Third, you need to learn what your strengths are -- and understand that you will succeed because of your strengths and you will fail because you didn't mitigate your limitations. You must build on strengths -- think of what you rage on -- and then actively work to address head-on what is holding you back: poor goal-setting or time management, taking offense too easily at comments from others, expecting a lot from your employer, not accepting politics as a fact of organizational life, always (I mean always) needing to be right, etc.

Failure is an option. Choose to not fail. Ask us how you can have a successful career in cybersecurity.