The value of purpose in modern leadership

Edition 17 of the Friday Five is guest edited by? Joanne Nelson , Bright Space specialist adviser?and highly experienced brand builder and marketing consultant.

When I agreed to guest edit this week's newsletter for Bright Space, I thought about how I can bring a different perspective to the subject of ‘the value of purpose in modern leadership’.

I’m currently working for a client in the cyber security sector. It’s a start-up, and its CTO and Co-Founder has a really unique perspective of the purpose for his company, and the role it can play in creating a real sea-change, in what is a very male-dominated industry. His ambition is to bring systemic change to the cyber security industry by fundamentally changing how we advise companies to protect themselves against cyber threats and he encourages businesses to be more ‘open’ about when they are vulnerable to attack.

Having worked in the IT industry for almost three decades, his view that businesses need to be ‘less macho’ and be willing to show their vulnerabilities, to collaborate and beat the ‘bad guys,’ demonstrates a very refreshing and modern perspective.

I hope you enjoy this interview with Elliott W. at Advanced Cyber Defence Systems ( ACDS ).

1. Tell me what ACDS stands for as a business? What is its purpose?

At ACDS, we are incredibly intent and driven towards investing in user experience and building empathy with the users in cyber security. This is something that I think is critically lacking across the cyber security software industry. And I think, that’s to our collective detriment.

We, at ACDS, believe in the value of user-centred design. If we haven’t talked to users then there’s no data; it doesn’t exist.

We need to have all of our findings validated by use of research and we need to make sure that we’re not coming up with products that are designed by people in a boardroom, or in an engineering conference huddle.

2. You’ve told me previously that the cyber security industry is ‘too macho’ – what do you mean by that. Why should we be more ‘open’?

I think this is really important for all of us in the cyber security industry to come to grips with, and I think part of it, at its core, is about the make up of the industry.

We are too dominated by, frankly, loud male voices, or just male voices generally. The fact that we don’t have a diversity of perspective, and a diversity of experiences, participating in conversations that direct the technologies and the development of some of these software, in a significant and forward-leaning way, means the gap is monochromatic and homogeneous, and we’re just not benefitting from those other perspectives.

When you see this in artificial intelligence and machine learning, it becomes clear that we’re not building tools with a diverse group of people. These tools reflect the biases of the people that build them, so you have AI and computer vision tools, and other tech, that are less good at recognising and understanding people of colour, for example, in terms of visual recognition. I think this should be a lesson to all of us, and particularly in the cyber security community, because it feels like there’s too much of a quasi-James Bond attitude towards cyber security. And really, we need to be thinking about ourselves as defenders, not spies leading the charge, but defending and protecting, and understanding how we can ensure the wellbeing of the companies that we’re working with.

3. How do you believe men can be more vulnerable in the workplace?

It requires a mind shift, and it comes from a place of knowing that you need to do better. If we’re looking at the diversity of this industry, looking at how many people in senior positions are men, the lack of diversity and make up of this industry, we see that men are in the key positions, by and large, and not just key positions but also throughout the stack, the pyramid of people working in cyber security roles.

I think being able to make space for people who think differently, and have different experiences, and different opinions is one of the best things you can do, and when you’re in a position of leadership and power, it’s important to be able to stand up and step back.

Making sure you’re in a position to share what you have, but also making sure everyone in the room has a chance to give their input, and that the people who are underrepresented in these conversations are contributing, and if they’re not in the meeting, then take a look in the mirror and think about actually inviting a more diverse group of folks. That’s a critical part to this; the other thing is just doing some deep introspection and make sure that as you’re leading, you’re also thinking about the right qualities that you want to have in leadership.

4. What qualities do you think are most important in a modern-day leader?

A lot of it is about self-awareness and being able to be vulnerable, and open and authentic about who you really are, and your thought process, as it’s often a bumpy ride to get to a position of leadership. I think by being open about sharing those experiences, it helps others to be able to imagine themselves in those roles. And if you’re in a majority position, make sure you’re taking steps back to allow others to be represented, and build those partnerships.

5. Who do you most admire?

That’s a tough question but a person I admire greatly is Brené Brown. She’s an American professor, author, and podcast host, and does some really ground-breaking work around the power of vulnerability. She also happens to be from my homeplace of Texas! What I love is how she talks about vulnerability not just in our interpersonal relationships, but also in leadership. And I think there’s a tremendous amount to learn from her and her work in this topic, to becoming a more authentic person in your interactions.

As a final point, I also think vulnerability helps to build better relationships with people, from a company perspective. Being more open about vulnerabilities means that we’re able to deal with, and process those vulnerabilities, and make patches in a better way.

Thanks for reading.

Enjoy the weekend,

Jo Nelson.