Build a Team, Not a Dependency
If your team cannot function without you, are you really leading the team—or have you become its biggest dependency?
It is a question worth thinking about, especially as you move into senior security management.
When you are good at what you do, people naturally turn to you for answers. You solve difficult problems, make critical decisions and step in when things go wrong. Over time, you become the person everyone depends on.
That may be a sign of your expertise, but it can also become a limitation.
As your responsibilities grow, you cannot remain involved in every vulnerability, every incident, every exception and every security decision. If everything needs your attention, when do you get the time to think about strategy, business risk and the future of the security organisation?
At some point, you have to stop being the person who solves every problem and become the person who builds a team capable of solving them.
Learn to Let Go
For someone who has built a career on technical expertise, delegation is not always easy. You may know how to solve a problem faster than anyone on your team. You may even be tempted to take over when things go wrong.
But solving it yourself every time doesn’t help your team grow.
Give people ownership. Let them make decisions within their authority. Explain the outcome you expect, provide the necessary context, and allow them to work through the problem.
They may not always approach it the way you would. That doesn’t automatically mean they are wrong.
Your responsibility is to guide them, help them learn from mistakes, and ensure that important risks are escalated when necessary.
Build People You Can Depend On
A strong security team is not simply a group of people who execute instructions. It consists of people who understand their responsibilities, recognise risks, challenge assumptions and make sound decisions.
Think about your own team. If you were unavailable for a week, would the important work continue? Would incidents be handled properly? Would your team know which decisions they could make independently and which required escalation?
If everything stops until you return, that is worth examining.
The answer isn’t necessarily to hire more people or introduce another process. Sometimes, it starts with clearer ownership, better coaching and the willingness to trust people with meaningful responsibility.
You should also encourage your team to disagree with you when they have a valid reason. A leader who surrounds themselves with people who only agree will eventually miss things that matter.
Your Role Has to Change
As a security manager, you may spend much of your time ensuring that work gets completed.
As you progress toward a CISO role, you need to spend more time asking whether the right work is being done, whether the team has the capability to deliver it, and whether the organisation is prepared for the risks ahead.
That doesn’t mean losing touch with operations. It means no longer allowing operational demands to consume all your attention.
Your team should be able to manage its responsibilities while you focus on strategy, risk, business priorities and the decisions that require your involvement.
Start Where You Are
You don’t need to wait until you become a director or CISO to make this change.
Choose a responsibility you currently manage closely and give a capable team member ownership of it. Agree on the expected outcome, establish escalation boundaries, and review the results rather than every individual step.
Gradually extend that ownership as confidence and capability grow.
You will probably find that developing people takes more effort initially than doing everything yourself. But that investment creates a team that can take on greater responsibility over time.
And that is precisely what you need as a leader.
The CISO Perspective
A CISO cannot be the single point of expertise, approval and decision-making for an entire security organisation. The role demands a team that can operate effectively, respond to challenges and make sound decisions without constant intervention.
Building that capability starts long before the CISO title arrives.
The goal is not to make yourself indispensable to every task. It is to build a team capable of delivering even when you are not involved.
That is an important step in the CISO journey: learning that leadership is not about how much you can do yourself, but how effectively you enable others to deliver.
