For one thing, it means that their roles are growing more stressful by the day. When your role revolves around protecting your company’s technology from being hacked, but hackers are finding new and innovative ways of hacking company databases every day, cybersecurity can feel less of a skill and more a case of pure luck.

In addition, the attitude to online and data security from senior leaders needs to be on-point in order for cybersecurity chiefs to access the resources they need to continue to fight hackers. If the decision makers in a business are not 100% on board in terms of resourcing and funding cybersecurity innovation, the business remains exposed to even the most transparent of threats.

With that in mind, and with an understanding of the challenges facing cybersecurity professionals and leaders, how do you expect those roles to change in the future?

A major threat facing cybersecurity leaders

In order to assess the future of cybersecurity leadership roles within businesses of all sizes, we first need to look at how such roles are viewed in light of the wider business.

The reality is that while cybersecurity should be an ever-growing priority for businesses, when security barriers stand in the way of efficiently completing a task or hitting a target, employees are more than willing to sidestep or overlook the importance of their security processes to achieve their own goals. Even if this decision opens up the business to a multitude of external cyber threats, the reality remains that cybersecurity is not direct or severe enough for individuals to take it completely seriously.

Which is why, when we look at the future of cybersecurity leaders, we can see a large and growing percentage of these professionals stepping away from their roles altogether.

And the explanation couldn’t be simpler: cybersecurity professionals in the modern business world are crucial to protecting the company’s data and information, and yet their position remains under threat from colleagues who bypass or refuse to follow the correct procedures to safeguard their own information.

So, what’s the solution?

The only way to safeguard cybersecurity leadership talent

The first and most important thing that businesses need to do is invest in full-company training which highlights the importance of these cybersecurity professionals and the role they do. By encouraging colleagues and employees to follow the steps and respect the boundaries put in place by cybersecurity leaders, the integrity of the role is protected; the pressure on these professionals is lifted somewhat, and the position as a whole becomes ingrained in the whole company’s culture.

To safeguard your own cybersecurity talent, you need to integrate their role as part of the wider team and ensure that all colleagues understand the repercussions of their own attitude to cybersecurity.

If not, we are going to see more and more of these IT professionals leaving their roles and walking away from their position – leaving companies more at risk than ever of hacking and security threats.

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