Insight on Security Leadership

Insight on Security Leadership

Collaboration Is Key to Expanding the Definition of Security

Businesses today operate within a much more complex, sophisticated, and interconnected competitive universe than they did 20 or even 10 years ago. One of the impacts of these transformations on Corporate Security is that cross-functional partnerships, once considered a "nice to have," have become a risk management imperative.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: Decision Making Tips for Security Leaders

Decisions that security leaders and their teams make can have lifechanging consequences. All security leaders would do well to consider these suggestions to enable themselves to make the best choices for their organizations and the people they protect.

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Insight on Security Leadership

How Concept of Operations Can Build Cross-Functional Partnerships

Imagine trying to launch a workplace violence prevention program without talking to Human Resources. Or starting a GSOC without bringing in IT. There are some collaborations that are essential to effective security risk management. A concept of operations is a good vehicle for accomplishing that and more.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Choosing the Right Security Vendor

When choosing a security vendor, cost is most often a primary determinant. However, you will likely get a better return by making sure to go beyond the bottom line and evaluate the vendor by these six criteria.

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Insight on Security Leadership

10 Steps to Success in Your First Three Years

A new security leader faces pressure to quickly learn the lay of the land, make strong impressions among staff, peers, and executives, plant a flag for shifting strategy or change, and review what the function has done up to their tenure, all while managing the day to day.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Next Generation Security Leader Research

The Next Generation Security Leader infographic (v.2) is a representation of the skills, elements and knowledge needed for today’s security function. Download your copy!

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Insight on Security Leadership

Building Valued, Relevant Metrics Programs

In the SEC's October 2023 Security State of the Industry briefing, Tier 1 Security Leaders heard from two successful security executives discuss their metrics journey.

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Insight on Security Leadership

The Biggest Gap in Security Success: Not Getting Executive Agreement on "Why?"

Of the five basic problem-solving questions about security, who, what, why, how, and how much, the one that poses the biggest challenge for many security leaders is "Why?" -- yet it’s the most important question to answer.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Keep Security Ahead of Management’s Questions with Continuous Improvement

Five tools for continuous improvement assessment.

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Insight on Security Leadership

The Nine Practices of the Successful Security Leader

A graphic outline of the nine practices that bring security leaders success, based on SEC research.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Influencing Enterprise Risk Mitigation

Threats come from all angles, in many forms, and sometimes all at once. Having a strategic perspective on comprehensive risk mitigation is paramount. In Influencing Enterprise Risk Mitigation, Francis J. D’Addario lays the groundwork for looking at risk comprehensively, always while keeping people – our most important asset – safe...

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Insight on Security Leadership

What Does the Board and Senior Management Need to Know About Corporate Security?

Our subject matter experts share some lesser-known benefits of corporate security and examples of ways in which corporate security can evolve beyond the typical expectations.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Intelligence and Resilience in Next Generation Corporate Security

Here are a few key takeaways from a recent SEC forum covering operationalizing and optimizing people, process, and technology for future risk mitigation value.

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Insight on Security Leadership

2021 Corporate Security Organizational Structure, Cost of Services and Staffing Benchmark: Selected Highlights

About This Research The data used in this analysis were provided by SLRI members and Tier 1 Security Leaders™ of the Security Executive Council. All are risk management practitioners comprising a broad cross-section of industries. The organizations represented come from the public and private sectors; they range from small and...

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Insight on Security Leadership

How to Quickly Show Stakeholders the State of the Security Program

The Security Success Foundation Assessment™ has proven its value in a range of programs, from brand new, to transitioning, to established and mature.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Practitioners New to a Leading Role

You want to make sure your first couple of years run smoothly and your plans come to fruition and add value to the company.

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Visionary CSOs

Click image to view full size Visionary CSOs are at a stimulating point in their careers because they want to address horizon and cutting-edge issues. For example, security becoming a cost neutral department. Taking on significant challenges, such as social issues, or better partnering with law enforcement for the greater...

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Insight on Security Leadership

Three Ways to Improve Buy-In from Your Internal Customers

A common reason security functions struggle to engage their internal users and upper management is that security does not clearly understand how those internal customers think or what they value.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Get Ahead of Social Media Reputational Risk

A reputational risk matrix can act as a starting point for security leaders as they develop and communicate their response plans.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Ten Actions Highly Accomplished Security Leaders Take

Over ten years of extensive research and analysis has identified key actions common to successful leaders of security programs.

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Insight on Security Leadership

How to Get the Traction Security Needs to Influence the Organization

If you as a security leader have never asked yourself why the security function isn't gaining the influence and traction it deserves, you are in a very small minority.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Things I Learned When Starting a New Security Leadership Role

The smartest people in the room are that way because they learned from others' mistakes.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Budget, Staffing, Accountability: How Can a Service Technology Roadmap Help?

Let's focus now on some specific situations in which a technology roadmap can help an organization.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Do You Need a Security Service and Technology Roadmap?

Too often, technology is implemented without regard to future service considerations like acquisition integrations, managing innovation or obsolescence.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Security Programs Succeed by Reaching These Twelve Goals

Each organization's journey to security evolution is unique, but success often embraces this set of common goals.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Smart Security: The Quilter Cost/Recovery Matrix (Parts 1-2)

This video focuses on cost analysis through a security cost/recovery matrix, with recommendations on how to apply it and communicate its results to executives.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Smart Security: Practices That Increase Business Profits (Parts 1-4)

This presentation does away with the concept that security is only an expense.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Five Security Program Maturity Assessments

Online questionnaires offer immediate feedback Are your security programs as far along as you think they are? How do you know for sure? And how do you communicate your progress? There are many ways security practitioners can gauge the effectiveness or comparable state of their programs – metrics, program reviews,...

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Insight on Security Leadership

Ranking Security Performance

Here are four of the most often-used methodologies we've seen for demonstrating how your security program ranks to corporate leadership team.

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Insight on Security Leadership

A Brief History of Corporate Security Leadership and Its Future

In today's business world, accomplished security leaders need to have both security and business skills and an awareness of emerging issues that may affect the company.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Wanted: A New Type of Security Leader

As the recognition of board-level risk continues to grow across the enterprise, so too does the need for highly trained business executives with security expertise.

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Insight on Security Leadership

The OPaL+ Assessment Executive Summary

There are three main factors and two cultural attributes that play a role in the success of enhancing or moving programs ahead in any given organization. These form the OPaL+ acronym.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Don't Delay Development

Each year, we traditionally look ahead and set goals for ourselves, personally and professionally. Like most things, if development is going to occur for you and your team, it needs to be embedded in the living strategic plan of your organization, rather than a one-time event.

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After You've Moved Into a New Role in Security

Some thoughts on how to engage the business as a new Security Leader.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Are You Considering All Your Risks?

This infographic depicts the key elements of the SEC's Unified Risk Oversight (URO)™ concept.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: Building a Successful Security Business Team

I feel that our security department is generally thought of in a positive light in our company. However, I don’t think our business partners look at us as leaders within the company. Any advice how to turn this around?

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: Developing Today’s Next Generation Security Leaders

With all the specialty knowledge that certain positions are requiring, whether for new physical security systems, GSOC, and even investigations, how do we develop leaders that can lead these services? How do we best attract, find, develop, and retain the kind of people that are needed for an effective security team?

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Insight on Security Leadership

Advances and Stalemates in Security

Based on SEC research and collaborations with senior security executives in all types of organizations, these are our thoughts on how security leaders have advanced and where they seem to have hit a wall.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Eleven Ways to Encourage Strategic Thinking

Security leaders shared their thoughts on the skills that are lacking in the deputies and other potential leaders they are grooming.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Business Evolution Requires Active Security Alignment

As business continues to change, the next generation of security leaders must be prepared to change with it in order to succeed.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Becoming a Next Generation Security Leader

No single skill set or attribute guarantees security leadership success. Next Generation Security Leadership is a long-range goal for most.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Security's Biggest Challenge

The role of the Security function is essentially to identify and mitigate security risks to the organization.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Smart Security: Practices that Increase Business Profits

The key to smart security is understanding how to win and sustain executive leadership, deal with business realities, identify the root causes of business losses, and have frank discussions on loss when dealing with business risk.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: The Need for Effectively Telling Security's Story

I’ve been in the top security position for three months. I’m the first security director for the company and about to start communicating security responsibilities to the organization. What is the best message I should be putting out?

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Insight on Security Leadership

Insight into Security Leader Success - Part 2

More and more senior management are utilizing factual data and research to guide their decision making – they’re demanding better answers. We are finding this trend is reaching into the realm of Security in an ever increasing number of...

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Insight on Security Leadership

Insight into Security Leader Success - Part 1

More and more senior management are utilizing factual data and research to guide their decision making – they’re demanding better answers. We are finding this trend is reaching into the realm of Security in an ever increasing number of...

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Insight on Security Leadership

Why You Should Conduct Confidence Surveys

Based extensive research the SEC has been recommending a particular kind of survey that we call confidence surveys, which are used to assess the level of confidence the organization has in your programs and services.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Preparing for Next Generation Security Leader Opportunities

Francis D'Addario has lead security programs at Starbucks Coffee Company, Hardees Food Systems, Jerrico Inc. and The Southland Corporation. He shares some of that experience in the proven practice presentation "Preparing for Next Generation Security Leader Opportunities". Whether you are new to security risk mitigation, a seasoned practitioner, or want...

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: Running Security as a Business: Measuring Performance

I recently read something from the Security Executive Council that used the term "running security as a business." Can you elaborate on what that means as it relates to security and what is an example of this approach?

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Insight on Security Leadership

The Importance of Security's Brand Image

If the value security brings to the organization is not readily recognized, management will increasingly marginalize that function as a business.

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Insight on Security Leadership

The Potential Realm of CSO Responsibilities

This is a visual representation of research conducted by the SEC that shows the potential mitigation services that Security provides to an organization.

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: Stalemates in Security

How can the security industry show value?

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: Security’s Success is About the Business

How can I make the security department better known to the rest of the organization?

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Insight on Security Leadership

Faculty Advisor: 11 Steps to Leadership Promotion

I’ve been at a manager level for a while now and I want to get to the next level. My boss is great but she is busy and doesn’t have time to coach me. What’s my best plan of attack?

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