Thread by @mikepsecuritee

Continuing on the theme of advancement, I couldn't find any good resources on how to prep for a management role in #cybersecurity so I decided to make one! 🧵👇

In my last thread, 🧵I covered How to Advance Your Career in the #Cybersecurity field

https://twitter.com/mikepsecuritee/status/1308769654379347968

There are so many good resources on acing the technical interviews for individual contributor positions in cybersecurity and other tech roles, but I couldn’t find anything about landing a Cybersecurity Manager position.

For the sake of this thread, I’m considering a “manager position” to be one that has leadership accountability for a team of people and the HR responsibility to hire/coach/fire them

Becoming a manager in any field typically requires a person to demonstrate a lot of skills that have nothing to do with the team of people they are leading

But at the same time, with tech teams, you have to also demonstrate enough “street cred” to lead a team of more technical people. You have to be able to talk shop, understand enough of the "how", while also filtering and translating direction and strategy outwards and upwards

For the interview, you'll be expected to speak about your principles and approaches one wide range of non-technical topics (i.e., management style, perceived weaknesses, how you motivate and lead teams, etc.)

Be prepared to speak in summaries about:

- How you drive and manage work
- How you engage and convince stakeholders
- How you manage expectations upwards

Be prepared to speak in more depth about:

- What you are passionate about
- What kinds of problems you like to solve
- Where you feel you provide the most value
- How you get support from the people you lead

Be prepared to come with examples of:

- How you reduced risk through strategic planning
- How you made security easier for your end users
- How you enabled the business in a secure way

How far you can go in a management career will always be bounded by your ability to convince all the people involved in the best way to navigate to a successful outcome.

A helpful and interesting take on management philosophy: randsinrepose.com/archives/the-m…

My favorite manager-type books that have helped me in my cybersecurity manager roles:
amazon.com/Phoenix-Projec…

Another favorite book: amazon.com/DevOps-Handboo…

Another great book on technology and security leadership: amazon.com/War-Peace-Busi…

For building great teams and creating powerful messages and strategies that people can get behind:
amazon.com/Leading-Change…

On building a culture of accountability and freedom:
amazon.com/Powerful-Build…

Most of this is stuff you can't fake, at least not for long. You have to have real experience navigating these things and proving yourself, but you'll never get the chance if you don't sell yourself when you have the shot.

Would love to hear any feedback, and if there's enough interest, I'll make this thread into a GitHub repo to make it community-driven and keep it updated.👌