The topic of mental health for security leaders has been on my mind for quite some time now. As I work through my own experience with unexplained anxiety and physiological stress that crept up on me late into the pandemic quarantine of 2020, I decided it was high time to write about it.
Some of the most memorable leaders in my career spent a lot of energy investing in their teams, encouraging them, pushing them, and when needed – holding them accountable. But who pours into our leaders? Who encourages us? Pushes us?
These are global challenges that all leaders experience at some point in their time. If left unaddressed, it places leaders at greater risk for burnout, dissatisfaction, and mental health challenges.
Every leadership role comes with its own set of unique challenges and cyber security is no different – many leaders regularly deal with:
- Constantly changing threat landscape – this is one of the reasons many of us love this line of work, but it can also be a source of stress for the under-resourced.
- Difficulty unplugging or taking vacations.
- Your electronic assets are continuously under attack, which can make it difficult to be done for the day. Security leaders must guard themselves to avoid burnout.
- Many understand that it is not if you will be breached, but when. In the recent history of security breaches, many CISOs and security leaders have been fired or forced to resign after a breach (regardless of whether they did their job well or not) and this absolutely impacts current and future security leaders. I’m not saying all companies are like this and I know of many healthy organizations that hold their executives and personnel accountable, but also stand by them when a successful attack was achieved.
You take any of these alone and with the right cognitive tools and discipline, you can likely handle it, but add one or two others into the mix, sprinkle in isolation from the quarantine, and increased security needs due to the pandemic (opportunist threat actors abound) – you suddenly find the formula far different than the regular job description. With everyone being cautious with their budgets (and rightly so for the most part), we find ourselves asked to accomplish more with the same or fewer resources. Veteran security leaders are no strangers to this, but it does add to the compounding equation of variables that must be dealt with.
Let’s look at anxiety, many think that something has to exist to cause anxiety, that there must be a reason that they suddenly felt panicked or the classic sense of impending doom. Yes, sometimes there are agitators and instigators of anxiety, depression, and other states that we can seek to nullify or change. But there are also times where there is literally no explanation that you can find for feeling the way you do.
Shared Experience: You are not alone!
In a survey conducted by Osterman Research and Nominet, 91% of CISOs reported dealing with moderate or high stress.
Take my personal experience. I consider myself mentally strong, reliable, and self-aware. Five weeks into this quarantine, I honestly was feeling great. I felt hopeful, thankful for the amazing team of professionals that I work with, and confident that we would get through this pandemic together. Not that I believed that it would be easy or without pain and sacrifice, but I knew in my heart and mind that we would be successful. Then, out of the blue I get hit with panic attack (embodying both the physiological and mental aspects). Having not experienced this as an adult, I immediately dove into diagnosis mode:
- Did I eat something bad?
- Is something in my work or personal life upsetting me?
- I am apprehensive or scared about anything?
- Have I missed something material in my security program?
- Have I done something wrong?
After reasoning through everything and coming to the understanding I had no reason or answers for why I felt the way that I did, I made the decision to take immediate action and contact my doctor. In short, I asked for help. For me to be at my best and be able to continue to serve my team, my clients, and my partners – I needed to ensure my own oxygen mask was properly fitted. I needed to make sure I was tending to my own fuel tank and ensuring that I was being filled, so that I could continue to pour into those around me.
I wouldn’t wish this feeling or experience on anyone. Over 18% of Americans are affected annually by anxiety and only ~37% seek help for this very treatable condition.
Some tools I found helpful include a mix of the following:
- Diet and Nutrition
- Adequate Sleep
- Exercise
- Talking (don’t stay silent)
Ultimately, I am finding that I am much better at giving grace to others than myself. Grace is required to weather this type of storm successfully. Our brains are incredibly complex organs that we are still discovering so much about. If you have or are experiencing anything similar, know that you are not alone and you are not broken. Remember when companies and security professionals started sharing threat data and communicating more? We were able to collectively protect our organizations better. Like many things in life, going lone wolf is often not the wisest or most successful path.
References:
https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-anxiety
https://www.cyberscoop.com/security-burnout-osterman-nominet-poll/
https://www.cyberscoop.com/cybersecurity-stress-relief-reading-cooking-classic-cars-exercise/