Roles and Responsibilities of the Information Security Manager

Introduction

After several years of job progression through an organization’s IT and information security chain of command, many will land many at the doorstep of what they were building their respective careers for – a managerial role. In this industry, the job title is Information Security Manager.

Information security managers play a necessary, pivotal role in the IT and information security departments of the organizations they serve. They operate as the brains of the organization’s IT and information security teams and manage the overall operations and direction of their departments. This article will detail the roles and responsibilities of this profound position and will leave you with a better understanding of the part they play in an organization.

The Roles of the Information Security Manager

You may think that information security managers have only one role, but the signpost of this section is pluralized for a reason. Simply put, information security managers wear many hats when they take on this position. Managing an information security team, let alone an entire department, takes an acute big-picture-oriented mind that has the brainpower required to make the higher-level decisions while having the foresight to assemble a strong team of information security experts that can be trusted to handle the lower-level, hands on tasks and changes that their information security landscape calls for.

The primary role of the information security manager is to manage the IT and information security department’s team and personnel. With that said, managerial positions such as this require a certain intangible skill set: managerial people skills. Some have it and are cut out for the position, while a majority of people do not. Keep this in mind as you move toward familiarity with this position.

Another role of the information security manager is what I like to call “Analyst-in-Chief,” meaning (Read more...)