The Cybersecurity Manager's Guide

Chapter 4. Step 1: Cultivate Relationships

Now that you’ve had a peek at the seven steps to building an InfoSec program, I want to dive into the details of each step. Step 1 focuses on building good working relationships. Keep in mind that relationships, although the focus of this step, are at the core of each of the seven steps. As you move through each step, your effectiveness will largely result from a continual focus on relationships.

As you start to work through the steps, I suggest you adopt the mindset to put others and their interests above your own. This may seem counterintuitive and career ending, but it’s not. It’s about playing “long ball” and understanding that others will embrace security to the extent you honor and respect them as colleagues. I’ve said it many times and will say it again here: your job begins and ends with relationships.

For every brick I lay building the InfoSec program, I want the names of others etched into them. I want to give others credit as much as possible. I don’t need my name on any of them. Amplify the contributions of others. Diminish your own. This is the beginning of good working relationships.

Focusing on relationships isn’t about giving up control, or selling out the program or the company. Quite the contrary. You’re in a way recruiting and quietly deputizing others into your “extended security team.” They don’t realize it, but you are. You’re aligning your actions with your belief that the only way to secure the company’s information ...