The best performing CISOs have five main key habits says Gartner – and they don’t burying a nose deeply in a SOC and inhaling deeply.
Those overinvesting in activities such as security operations and underinvesting in stakeholder relationship building should pay heed.
A new survey of 227 CISOs, conducted between 2020 and 2023 by the Magic Quadrant magi at Gartner, emphasises anew what may be old news to some: tactical delegation is king and that the best performing CISOs establish strong relationships with "non-IT stakeholders and senior decision makers outside the context of projects” in order to best align cybersecurity with business decision making and outcomes.
See also: Dell's Chief Security Officer on physical security, frameworks, burnout and incident response
So far, so potentially obvious. But in assessing CISO effectiveness -- by ability to execute against a set of outcomes, detailed in the chart below, as shared with The Stack – Gartner found that there were five key behaviours that cropped up regularly amongst those CISOs inhabiting the metaphorical equivalent of that top right corner in a Magic Quadrant...
