Infographic: Weighing Critical People Skills for Security Leaders

What skills are needed for security professionals to be successful today and in the future? In a survey for the 2022 ASIS Foundation report The State of Security Management: A Baseline Phenomenological and Empirical Study, respondents rated certain skills as critical for security professional success.

Emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills were most essential, the study found.

“Of the eight key success factors of a successful senior security executive listed in ASIS’s Chief Security Officer (CSO) Standard, six of them are people skills versus purely technical skills,” the report explained. “Some of the specific terms mentioned in the list are innovation, integrity, ability to influence, ability to adapt, and relationship management.”