Hi folks,
Some of you know I ride my bike into work into DC.
I live in Alexandria, so I come over the 14th Street Bridge and ride up 15th Street until I hit New York Avenue. When I’m not dodging angry cars and riding for my life, I occasionally become aware of my surroundings. For a while I’ve noticed that from the Jefferson Memorial to the Washington Monument, 15th Street is called Raoul Wallenberg Place. Only recently did I find out why.
Towards the end of WWII in 1944, knowledge of the Holocaust had spread, but the front lines of Allied advance were still too far away to stop the atrocities. Citizens of neutral countries like Sweden could move freely within occupied territory, and Raoul Wallenberg – a wealthy, privileged, 32 year old Swede – volunteered to help. With little more than his wits and his cover as a Swedish diplomat, Wallenberg saved nearly 100,000 lives. This is a link to a case study of Wallenberg’s leadership – it’s well worth reading.
Seriously – go read it. This post can wait.
There are countless lessons we can learn from an inspiration like Wallenberg – the defense of justice, courage in the face of danger, protection of those most vulnerable – but those are hard lessons to apply in our daily work lives. Nonetheless, I think Wallenberg demonstrated several characteristics that we can benefit from emulating. I want to talk about a couple today and a few more tomorrow:
- Improvisation: Wallenberg left for Budapest with only the rough outlines of a plan. He’d assume the cover of a Swedish diplomat, distribute fake Swedish passports, and establish a series of safe houses under diplomatic protection – he’d figure out how to do that (and everything else) along the way. He understood that time was his most precious resource (as it is for all of us), and that waiting to develop the perfect plan before deploying would only risk lives. Being able to improvise upon arrival – to remain flexible in the face of changing conditions – was key to his success.
- Confidence: Wallenberg was no more a diplomat than you or I. But through unwavering displays of confidence – even under live gunfire – he convinced hundreds of armed and angry NAZIs that he had the authority to override their orders.
How are these characteristics relevant to our work in the Federal sector?
- Improvisation: The conditions around us are constantly changing – people, relationships, priorities, resources, etc. On top of that, cybersecurity itself is an amazingly dynamic field. Not only must we be comfortable with change in general, but also with our ability to adapt to it. If we can’t quickly adapt to an ever-changing landscape, we will soon be left headed in what was once the right direction, but is now the wrong one.
- Confidence: Much of what we do is serve as security subject matter experts. And if you don’t exude confidence in what you’re saying, you can’t expect others to accept you as an expert. So whether it’s to the IG, our peers in IT, or throughout the rest of our agenct, we need to demonstrate an air of confidence when we’re acting as a SME (which should be pretty much all of the time).
I have a few more lessons I think we can learn from Wallenberg, but I’ll save them for later. In the meantime, I encourage you to find your own. He left a legacy from which we all can learn much.
Rex