Navigating Behavioral Obstacles in Security Team Recruitment

There are many factors to consider when hiring senior security professionals for your team. Evaluation of education and experience is obvious. Assessing the potential risk for failure in the role or the organization is equally important.

Countless articles and studies confirm that most terminations at management and executive levels result from behavior issues as opposed to a lack of relevant knowledge or operational skills. Having worked with hundreds of organizations, we can attest that the security profession is not immune to this phenomenon.

A 2022 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study found 83% of managers felt unprepared to address behavioral challenges. Some HR organizations put that number closer to 90%. Persistent, unaddressed behavioral problems involving conduct, ethics, lack of civility and respect, and authoritative abrasiveness are issues that can affect both your hiring decisions and what types of work issues you will be asked to address within your organization.

These traits are strong predictors of individual challenges with both emotional and cognitive intelligence. Not screening for these issues during your hiring process can cause disruption and performance issues within your team and will have a direct impact on decision-making within your group. They can also become security-related risks to your organization.

The precursors to these traits did not surface a month post-hire. Many organizations and security professionals recognize this and put processes in place to conduct due diligence. This has been effective in the past. However…

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