The Security Circle

EP 156 “It’s Not in the Manual: Michael Gips on Writing the Leadership Book Security Needs”

• Yoyo Hamblen • Season 1 • Episode 156

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It’s Not in the Manual: Michael Gips on Writing the Leadership Book Security Needed

In this powerful and deeply human episode of The Security Circle Podcast, host Yolanda “Yoyo” Hamblen is joined by one of the most respected voices in global security leadership, Michael Gips, to explore why the security profession needed this leadership book—and why it needed it now.

Michael shares the story behind It’s Not in the Manual, a book built not on abstract frameworks or academic theory, but on real experiences, real people, and real leadership moments from across the security and risk profession. Drawing on decades of work in security, risk, and leadership, he explains why traditional leadership literature often fails security professionals—and how elevating authentic stories from the field creates something far more meaningful and practical.

The conversation ranges widely and candidly: from leadership in a world of permanent crisis and convergence, to the hidden emotional toll of security work, to why mental health is not a “soft issue” but a core leadership responsibility. Michael speaks openly about vulnerability, limits, and the leadership mistakes that shaped his thinking, offering rare honesty from someone at the top of the profession.

Together, Yoyo and Michael unpack mentorship, thought leadership, interviewing as a leadership skill, and why the future of security leadership will depend less on titles and tools—and more on curiosity, humility, humanity, and judgment. Along the way, they explore how stories, humour, and cultural references can make leadership lessons stick, even in the most complex and high-risk environments.

This episode is a masterclass in real-world leadership for security and risk professionals—for those navigating complexity, carrying responsibility, and leading when there is no playbook to follow.

If you’ve ever felt that leadership in security isn’t taught, isn’t written down, or simply isn’t in the manual—this conversation is for you.


https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgips/

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a fab review We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, I'm Yolanda And welcome to the Security Circle Podcast, produced in association with IFPO, the International Foundation for Protection Officers. This podcast is all about connection, bringing you closer to the greatest minds, boldest thinkers, trailblazers, and change makers across the security industry. Whether you are here to grow your network, spark new ideas, or simply feel more connected to the world of protection and risk, you are in the right place wherever you are listening from. Thank you for being a part of the Security Circle journey..

Yoyo:

okay. Welcome back. What can I say? The omnipotent.

Mike:

Wow,

Yoyo:

Mr. The un omnipotent, uh, I have to be careful how I say that. Michael Gibbs, how you doing?

Mike:

Hmm. I'm great, yoyo. How are you doing?

Yoyo:

Yeah, good. Look, uh, nothing better to do than to talk to you on a very cold damp, uh, December wet, rainy. Did I say cold? Ooh, English Wintry. Did I say wintry day? It's just you did, you're you are warming my cockles already, Mike.

Mike:

You gotta be careful what you say there too. Um, yes, it's also chilly here and not quite as wet, but yeah, it's a, um, it's getting to the time of year where it's getting a little bit, uh, uncomfortable. But I feel you, you know, si same very si similar weather here. Cross the pond.

Yoyo:

Well, let's warm the cockles of our listeners who will be listening just prior to Christmas, because guess what? Mike Gibbs has got a book coming out and it's landed on pre-release. Mike, Mike, I'm just gonna jump straight in because you asked for this. Um, but what was the moment you realized that this book needed to exist and was there a specific failure lesson or leadership insight that literally pushed you to write it?

Mike:

Well, lemme give you a little bit of background. I've been writing a leadership column for Security Magazine for the past five years, and it's kind of a combination of, it's not, it's not scholarly, it's my observations, it's my experiences dealing with people, leadership positions, my own experiences and taking from different aspects of life. So yes, a lot of it deals with security professionals. In the wild doing their stuff, you know, in crises and, and showing leadership. But it also has to do with me and security professionals and other risk professionals sort of do in their challenges of leadership in their daily lives and how that, you know, can, uh, transfer over to their professional lives. So I've been writing this column for five years and I, I've seen a lot of leadership books and it's like, do we really need another leadership book? No. Uh, but there aren't very many on security and risk leadership, and it's a different animal. And I'm not writing from the perspective of, you know, uh, um, you know, dense, uh, frameworks and templates and. I'm writing from my perspective, and I consider myself sort of a man of the security people and I want to elevate their voices, experiences, and expertise. And so this book is less about me than it is about the stories of probably 150 different security and risk professionals who are not just gratuitously mentioned in the book. They're not gratuitously mentioned. They, their stories are highlighted, their wisdom is, uh, galvanized. So I thought there's nothing out there like that, that, um, highlights the stories of our security professionals say, and their leadership aspects. And there's nothing that's written in a way that's sort of meant to entertain and not, um. Just inform dryly or pontificate. So I have my own quirky style of writing that's geared towards magazine writing. And so it's sort of in a long format now. And I'll stop. This is a very long answer, but

Yoyo:

are you, are you saying it's, it's not a funny read then, is that It's No, no jokes. Oh, there's,

Mike:

there are jokes actually. There is a section on using humor.

Yoyo:

Oh, thank God for leadership,

Mike:

thank God. And there's a section on, there's jokes in it. Uh, I don't know that there, that, there are a couple that are funny. Uh, and there's also a section on how people have used hu, how people use humor in their daily leadership. And it highlights a couple of people like Brian Rech, um, and Tourist and Wolf who. Sprinkle in humor and they're, they have very different styles of humor and sometimes they're not easy to understand. Especially Torsten is German. That's a culture not known for its sense of humor. But he has a very r sense of humor.

Yoyo:

They are so funny. Mike. Yes. The Germans are on the top, top, top, top of my list of very funny people. Seriously, they're so dry with their humor. Sarcastic.

Mike:

Yes, exactly. So

Yoyo:

you mentioned earlier another leadership book, but the thing is, I have to dispute what you said there, because there are so many bad leaders. So clearly people aren't picking up the message and we clearly do need more leadership books, Mike.

Mike:

Well, I don't know if we need more books or we need more leadership coaching or we need common sense, but there's every kind of leadership book out there you could possibly imagine, but not. Not many on for security and risk professionals. That's where I've, that's where I've lived, that's where I've made my bones, so to speak. And I really like to promote and amplify what other people have done. As a matter of fact, one of the early reads of the book, someone got back to me and said, I wanna hear more of your stories. Not more like, these are great stories about other people, but I'm reading this book because I wanna hear your insights and your experience. So I added a couple of, I added actually a few incidents and scenes and sort of, um, examples that, that directly relate to me. And when I, after I added them, other people commented, subsequent readers said, oh yeah, that, that really adds a lot. So I had to be forced to do that.

Yoyo:

I'm glad you said that because, uh, very recently I met somebody that we all know and he said to me, why hasn't anyone ever interviewed you on your own podcast?'cause people wanna hear about me too. And I'm like, people don't wanna hear about me. They tune in'cause they wanna hear about the guests, they wanna hear about me. And he's like, no, no, no, let's do a podcast and let's interview you. And I went, when are you gonna do it then? And so this person is gonna remain anonymous right. Until we launch. And I am gonna be the guest of my own podcast. Oh, that's

Mike:

amazing. I, I'm gonna, after this taping ends, I'm gonna try to squeeze it outta you, but

Yoyo:

scoop it, scoop of the day. Um, but look, I think look, you, you've made a really good point. But, uh, the other thing is you, you decided to name the book. It's not in the manual. Uh, and that's quirky. Love it. But is there anything that you still haven't put in that should be going in there, Mike? Or is there gonna be a second book?

Mike:

Well. There, you know, obviously leadership is a process. There's no end state. And I keep writing columns for the magazine. I keep coming off new ideas. So there have been times, like the book went, you know, has gone through its final proof stage and there was a, at a point where I submitted the original manuscript and I wanted, I'd written a couple other new columns. I was like, oh, this would work really well. Can we shoehorn it into the book? You know, like at this late stage. And the person, sort of the handler, he is not an editor, but he runs the book series that, uh, this book will be part of. And he said, you know what, just hold onto it. You can use it for promotional, you can, you know, material, you can use it for a second book and. There may be a second book I was talking to. I, I was doing a, uh, security assessment at a site and I was talking to the director of security and I was telling him about the book and he said, what we don't have is a way to turn in, turn the gems from Books of Leadership on Leadership into practical, you know, how do you apply it? Here's how you do an everyday, Hey,'cause I think, um, we should do a book on, you know, how to apply the lessons from the book. And I said, would you do it with me? And he's like, absolutely. So that may be the next, and then I could, I can get in those other stories as well, like that things that I wanted to get into the book and, um, but I couldn't

Yoyo:

You mentioned that you are also a, a feature column, writer for, is it the, security Journal Americas.

Mike:

No, this is secure. I write from several of the security magazines. This is security. Okay. Okay. Um, and, but I also write for Security Journal Americas and Security Technology or Security Executive, it's called now. So various magazines.

Yoyo:

So, so I write for Security Buyer security Buyer International. And I've read it. Yeah. And December's issue, I've decided, so no one knows this yet, but it's called How Happy is the Security Industry because I dunno if you've ever seen this, Mike, there's something that comes out called the World Happiness Report.

Mike:

I have seen that, yeah.

Yoyo:

And I looked at it and I thought, what can I learn from this and apply it to the security industry? Because look, let's face it, we secure borders, businesses, digital ecosystems, venues, cities, critical infrastructure and lives. But how happy are the people holding that responsibility? You'll obviously have to read to find out, but we face a lot of challenges, don't we?

Mike:

We do. I do wanna read that. Um, you know, we're in a, we're in a profession where you only getting bad news, right? I mean, if you're doing everything right, then nobody's saying anything. And the only time you get attention is when there's some crisis or something's going wrong. And then you're, you're on the, the, uh, the bright lights are upon you and how are you gonna respond? And that definitely takes a toll that can wear on you. And I'd be curious to see what the findings are of that, of that report. So, I'll be one of your avid readers.

Yoyo:

I think you won't be surprised.'cause I think a lot of us are very real about the adversities that we all face, you know, as, uh, security professionals. But in, and that's a nice segue, really. What sort of personal struggle sort of shapes effective leadership in high risk environments in your experience? Mike?

Mike:

Great question. Um. I find that people, I find the most interesting stories about people who either have epiphanies and step into leadership that way, or something that I call, and I know this is sounds kind of, um, haughty or arrogant, but teleological leadership, which is teleology means it's the science or the, the study of what's sort of meant to be. So when you find yourself, and this is what I'm supposed, this is what I've supposed to have been doing all along. So there's one story where there's a gentleman, and I'll tell you, it's Jeff Slotnik. You may, you probably have had him on your program. He, um. He is, um, you know, a, a long-term well-respected security professional. He's done a lot of things in his career, but probably his, uh, high water market of achievement as far as I'm concerned, is in 2017 he drove from where he lives in, in Washington state to, um, Whitefish, Montana in a snowstorm to protect. The local Jewish community there was under attack from sort of, uh, uh, like white supremacists and they were threatening to attack it. It was a real, it was basically a misunderstanding, but there was a troll storm and all these people were Jewish people. The few PE Jewish people in town were getting threatened, um, physically threatened, and they were getting phone calls and memes were being put up out there. He drove out there and he's a, he was in the army, he's a security professional, and as a Jew, he said he finally, this is what he was put on earth to do. So I really, really, um, that, that resonates with me. That sort of thing where he's always had a drive to give, to teach, to help, and it all came together and it's sort of apotheosis was when he went to help the, you know, the, the Jewish community in this town. Um, another story is. Olivia Arnaz, who, I don't know if you know who she is, but she's pretty well known, a lovely person. And, uh, her husband Ralph, they've both are US Army, um, veterans. They have a young family, lovely family. They, she grew up in Utah in a cult. And her story of how she was, you know, her, her experiences there and how she bloomed to become the professional she is now, and the, and the still developing, but a big hearted, really, uh, sharp and giving professionals. So that story is in there. There's one with Tanya Spencer, I don't know if you know her, but she is an, uh, an African American woman who's been living in Denmark for years, and I, I hosted her when I was running the CSO Center. Maybe 15 years ago, and she was doing a, uh, doing security training and she blew me away how good she was, how personal, personable, um, real effective. And she sort of fell off the, the, the face of the earth. I hadn't heard from her. And when I reached back out to her, she had been having all these personal troubles and they're di they're outlined in the, in the book or they're mentioned in the book and how, what happened to her and how, how she's in a continuing struggle to sort of regain her leadership.'cause I always looked up to her. I had no idea she was struggling, um, emotionally. And, and I don't think she'll mind, I'm saying this because it's in the book and I wouldn't mention it if she weren't like someone I looked up to and admired and really, really skilled at her craft. So. These are the kind of stories I think that people will get a lot. And I put it in their own words too. You know, I didn't, I don't do heavy headed editing. I said, write it out. I'll just lightly edit and I want to hear, I want people to hear your voice and how it comes out. So it's, it's authentic. It's not my overlay or my interpretation of what you're saying. So those are some of the more powerful parts of the book, I think. And I don't know if that answered your question. I think it did. But um, yeah, that's, that, those are things I'm particularly excited about.

Yoyo:

You mentioned Jeff and uh, yeah, I've literally just recorded this week, his podcast, and he was in the engineering call and he starts off by telling me about his career, in the military in Korea. And we, we had a great conversation around career. But in, in follow on to your previous, the book does reference dozens of people that you've lifted up. Mm-hmm. And in the, I wouldn't say I've lifted

Mike:

them up. Yeah. Well, I think they lifted me up.

Yoyo:

Well, I think, I think you've lifted them up and I think it's very, I think it's very humble of you to think otherwise. What qualities make someone worth investing in as a mentee in today's security world, Mike?

Mike:

I think just openness, humility, and curiosity are the big three. If you don't have humility, then you can't be taught. Right. If you think you know everything or you're, you're arrogant or you're, you're just, and I mean, I guess that can be overcome, but it may not be worth, you know, a, a mentor trying to overcome it. Curiosity is sort of what drives, um, learning, improving, growing, if someone has that you really have, you know, a great material to work with. Um, and sort of openness, um, being authentic, willing to learn, um, not guarded. Those are, I think those are the big three and it's pretty rare to get all three of them. Um, but as I'm sure you know,'cause I, I know that you mentor many folks and I get a lot of folks who want help either for specific purposes or so for the long term. And I've had people come back to me and said, oh, you better a great mentor. And I was like, I was your mentor. You know, I didn't realize that. Like, yeah, you did this and this and I just did it. Nice. To, you know, to help them. I didn't really consider myself a mentor, you know, a lot of these cases like, oh, I thought you were my mentor, you know, and so it's like, it's reciprocal, you know?

Yoyo:

Interestingly, I think you're right. I think mentorship as a relationship can be so many different things. It's like a pick and mix, you know, where you can pick up all the different sweet teas, you know, for like a couple of cents and you can put'em in a bag and they're all different flavors. And I think mentoring is like that. In fact, I had somebody approach me this week, uh, because she's been offered a job interview, and she did speak to me when I first met her and engaged with her at an event back in May, and she said, look, you know, I do want to progress. I do want to move forward and there is a particular career path I'm choosing, and when I get to the stage where I'm ready to interview, I'd love to just have a chat with you before I go in for that interview. And so I said, yeah, sure. Great. Just let me know how you get. And I said in the meantime, start, you know, doing a bit of homework on the STAR method.'cause you know, the Star method's really great for, responding to any questions really. And. Factually backing them up with some really good storytelling evidence. You know, obviously just researched some interview questions and I asked her to list, the top six qualities that she feels are really important to get across in that interview. Because then you find a way to work each of those qualities into your responses providing, of course, you are in an interview where you actually get asked questions because I know somebody, I know somebody recently who attended an interview with a very well known brand, sat in the meeting for 45 minutes, didn't get asked one question. So I, what could you say to that? Maybe not the right organization for you. Certainly not the right team you wanna be in. If you don't feel that your voice is heard, even at that level. But mentorship done right, it's important isn't it, to also have one eye open to spot talent and to give it an opportunity to grow. We've gotta look at the next gen, the YO Pro coming.

Mike:

Yeah, and we've gotta look out of our normal channels. You know, usually people come from the military or law enforcement, sometimes do security as guards or analysts, whatever. And they're, they're great and a lot of times they work out really well. But there is a real demand for talent. And we have to look at other places. We have to look at, you know, engineers, business people. Heck, I'll get, probably get, um, booed for this, but maybe even, you know, attorneys or other risk professionals, right? I mean, we need to expand our aperture and bring in more talented people and, and more diverse backgrounds. So it's not like, I mean, we still see for high level, you know, chief security officer jobs, big companies that. The job description requires you have a firearms license or something like that, or, you know, arrest authority. It's like, this was a corporate job, you know, you should not be doing that kind of stuff. And this is still the perception. It may not be that a security person wrote it might just be an HR person, but we've gotta, you know, open it up and bring more skill sets and change the perception of what, you know, a real security executive slash leader does.

Yoyo:

Yeah. And I, I see,'cause I keep an eye on LinkedIn, certainly for the kind of roles I'm interested in.'cause I like to see how they're, you know, I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing right now. Thanks, in case anyone's worried. But, um, I like to look at how the market's shaping and changing and the, the wordage around the kind of roles that I might be interested in in the future. And just keeping one eye out on the market and what's going on really. Because, you know, I'm in a non-technical cybersecurity role, a biso, whereas, and you've got TSOs, they are technical cybersecurity advisory roles and even biso roles that are non-technical. Some of them ask for, um, you know, um, uh, doctorates and PhDs and, uh, you just don't need a PhD to advise someone how to deploy great security, uh, controls, you know, in a safe way. Um, and so you are right, sometimes the wrong people aren't writing it. And then sometimes I think. The business doesn't know what it wants. And so they've kind of put this big net out, but they're not gonna get sometimes everything they're looking for. And I definitely think, you know, I would say to anyone who is in that stage of applying for roles, I have a few friends at the moment who are looking and I just say, just throw your CV out there. Sometimes the experience you have is, is more beneficial than having academic qualifications. And, um, I think the two can compliment each other very nicely. But look, you, you challenge Mike Gipps, the concept of thought leadership in the book. I thought that was brave. I do. Considering, you know, quite a lot of thought leaders, um, are they still your friends? What's the dark side of being labeled a thought leader then in the security space?

Mike:

People think that you're sort of a, um. I can think of your as a fraud, that you're just there for the clicks and the likes and the attention and the awards and that you don't really know the substance. Uh, you know, you're the, uh, you know, the sizzle not the stake as they put it in advertising. And, you know, that may be true in some cases. Uh, I know people, you know, once in a while you hear people make sort of derogatory comments about people who are prominent on LinkedIn and posting things and say, well, they can write about it or talk about it. But they don't really, they don't have the experience. And you know, they harrumph and they say, oh, not you, of course, you know, talking about talking to me. It's like, oh, you know, it's like, but so being a thought leader, it's like, and it's a weird term. It's like being an influencer. It's, it sounds kind of superficial. And so that's, that's the downside where it's like, okay, this is a person who, it's like, you know, if you can't do teach, right? So if you can't perform security, then do thought leadership pieces about it. So that's, that's the negative side.

Yoyo:

You know, I, uh, asked Chuck this question and um, I think it was episode three, the security circle mm-hmm. When I really didn't have a dithering clue what I was doing, just feeding my way through this process. And, and, and he laughed a lot as well, which is quite funny. But I said to him, you know, what's it like being a security influencer? And he just said, you know, it's really humbling to be honest, because it's a huge, he just kind of did this huge pregnant pause and he just said, you know, it's, it's huge responsibility because, you know. Not only do you get asked, there's a lot of demands of you. Sometimes you've gotta try and be available to everybody who needs you. You know, there's a huge obligation. You don't wanna give people the wrong information. And so he, he settled certainly my own view about that. And I just thought if I do bring about anything like that, then it's only through promoting other people's amazing achievements and successes. I don't, I'm not out there saying I'm brilliant. You know what I mean? I think anyone does catch me. Do that, strike me down that very minute with a, a, a, a ragged, uh, wet cloth and hit me with it. Um, because I think you've gotta keep realistic. I've always known that the minute you are put up on a pedestal, you can get knocked off it so, so quickly. So I've always kind of been a bit shy about any type of self promotion really.

Mike:

I don't blame you. Yeah.

Yoyo:

Yeah. So, um. Human factors and the poly crisis era. Got a question here for you. What type of leader survives and thrives Mike, in a world defined by poly crisis convergence and cognitive overload? And for those that might not have heard the term poly crisis's, an idea about what that means.

Mike:

Yeah. Poly crisis is a situation in which, you know, in a, in a regular career, say maybe 20 years ago, you have a crisis every once in a while, a crisis, you know, where there's an active shooter, maybe, or, um, there is some sort of major accident or a storm hits the country and, and, and, you know, severs their supply chain for a while or something happens like that. Or poly crisis. Like it's a, it's a, um, a term that that refers to. Current, you know, practicing currently where there's a crisis all the time. So I've also heard it called perma Crisis, where it's just cascading crises, where that there are economic disruptions, political and social upheavals and um, division, uh, supply chain problems, uh, you know, active shooters, workplace violence, uh, viruses, all, any kind of business disruption all happening at one time. And so that's the new normal where you're navigating. It's not just, okay, every few years we're gonna have a crisis. There's gonna be COVID, it goes away. Great, we're back to normal. There's no real business as usual anymore. It's business, um, in permanent or multiple crisis state.

Yoyo:

That explains kind of what happened in COVID for a lot of businesses, didn't it?'cause not only were we dealing with the crisis of COVID itself, we were dealing with absence of people, sickness of key, people., the complete agile change to business delivery and infrastructure and output. There were, that was a poly crisis for many. It probably the best example in our recent lifetimes.

Mike:

Yeah, it, I think that maybe ushered in the poly or one of the factors or one of the incidents that ushered in the poly crisis age now when, you know, COVID is always still in the background. You know, it's, it's sort of, it's a little bit receding from our, our consciousness, but for a while it was like in the post COVID world, blah, blah, blah. Every article, every discussion you always have to keep the, um, the idea of possibility of business disruption through, you know, for public health issues, top of mind.'cause if it happened before, it could easily happen again. Um, and it's amazing how quickly we able to, to mobilize and come out with vaccines and a and a way to get that to the population. But yeah, um, like I just look around right now and at just at what a, any major corporation has to face and it's you. Political issues, it's social divis divisiveness. It's everything from, you know, your workforce is very likely, badly split between say, people who are, you know, like, uh, believe in gender fluidity and, or, or don't like, have really opposing views on that. Yeah. Um, sustainability, DEI, um, who's in the right? Uh, Israel or the Palestinians.

Yoyo:

Yeah.

Mike:

Uca, Ukraine versus Russia. All these sorts of things. Um, and that's just in the social and political field and we're not even talking about, you know, economic turns and disruption and, and, and violence and. All these other factors and, and geopolitical, uh, moves like China dominating, um, rare and precious metals and things like that. And, you know, threatened to debate Taiwan and all sorts of other factors and, and incidents and, and, uh, uh, that, that define the era we're living in and, and make everything so perilous.

Yoyo:

As you think back to writing the book, was there a chapter that kind of nearly broke you, and I don't mean to be like very dramatic or anything, but was there a chapter that was like the hardest to write emotionally or even intellectually?

Mike:

Yes. And I hadn't thought about this, but when you said that it was on mental health and I kind of. Parceled it out to people, experts in mental health. I talked a lot about what other people were saying because I didn't feel all that confident myself talking about Here's what you do with mental health. So I said, okay, let's talk to the experts and their examples. And then when I had to come up with an example,'cause I thought it wasn't fair to, to foist this on other people and not give my own example. I thought about when I was a, um, a death penalty clerk in New Jersey. I talked to you about this in the past, and I would see every trial, the, uh. Cases would, well, something that the defense would put or the prosecution would put up with pictures of the incident. So, and then the defense would say they shouldn't have introduced those pictures. They shouldn't have been accepted because they're too prejudicial. And anyone who sees those pictures will immediately say, okay, they're guilty. Well, I had to look through hundreds of these pictures all the time of the most disgusting, vile, inhuman things done. Um, we butchering people and, you know, burning them alive and, you know, every sort of, every sort of barbarous thing you could do and then look at these pictures and it was so depressing. Um, so I was at, um, it was a late evening and my colleague and I, my co-work and I went to a, a restaurant called Fud Rucks, which is like a burger place, I guess we'd call it. Fast casual. And on the wall, like when you were coming in, they had pictures of like. Cattle that were hanging off of hooks. You know, like, you know, when Rocky punched in the Rocky movie, when he punched the cattle, you know, it was a picture. It's like it was meant to show that it was fresh beef and it looked like some of the pictures I'd seen of some of the victims being skinned alive and or not skinned, alive, skinned after their death and then cut into pieces. I was like, I can't eat here. And he looked at me like, really? Like he didn't have the same effect. It was kind of embarrassing to say, this is emotionally too taxing for me. I can't eat something that looks like person that we were just, you know, looking at, you know, this poor deceased, you know, so writing that, you know, I really had to kind of tap into my own emotions and say, yes, I've had mental health. I certainly have had mental health issues. Um, and Switzerland, choosing the one to deal with or chose, choose the one to mention in the book, it was a moment of reckoning. I said, I can, I can't, I can't punt this to everybody else. I have to own up to this and, and be, you know, um, you know, I have to, I have to acknowledge my own weaknesses.

Yoyo:

Wow. Look, doctors look at the human body as anatomy. They don't relate it to the person. And I think the best way to be a very good police detective or police officer is to look at the evidence in the same way that a doctor looks at anatomy. And interestingly, I've, like you seen lots of, images of, you know, the heinous and the evil things that can happen to the human body by another human being. But, uh, there was this one incident that I recall when I was in the job and a, a male colleague of mine, a father of a young boy. Went to a caravan fire and in the fire they discovered the body of a young boy who was the same age of his son. And that was all it took for him to, as we called in the day, go on the wobble, but going on the wobble was a big thing in the police. It was being literally physically and mentally incapable of being able to do your job for a period of time. And he really struggled with that. PTSD came on, uh, really hard and strong because it was just too relatable. Mm-hmm. It was. Mm-hmm. It was, he wasn't able to have the healthy distance from the personal element of the job he was attending, which is testimony to the fact really that I think that we all never know what's around the corner when it comes down to mental health challenges. Anything PTSD, like, I have a police officer colleague that I used to work with, and there's still a certain. Motorway highway in, in this country that she gets anxiety when she drives down it because of PTSD and attending an incident on that road. So you just never know when this is gonna hit you. And what did the, the chapter on mental health, what do you want people to take away from that, Mike?

Mike:

That, and it's one of the final chapters in the book, that mental health and caring about yours and others' mental health is a critical aspect of leadership that people don't really think about it. As a matter of fact, I know someone very closely, I won't say who it is, who is at verge of quitting because they, the environment. Is dismissive of, of health concerns in general, and it's very, abusive. And that is maybe the top thing that turns people off. They say, you don't, you know, you don't quit your job, you quit your manager. But I think even more so, you quit your culture and your environment if there's that kind of toxic culture and they don't care about your health and mental health, get out of there. Yeah. And that, that, that's the lesson there.

Yoyo:

Do you know, I'm gonna share something with you. Uh, one of the young women that I'm mentoring, she contacted me in distress, a few, uh, weeks ago. And I said, okay, I am all ears. Let me know what's going on. And basically somebody, a woman actually that she really respected, put on a pedestal, looked up to admired, I wanna be like you one day. You know? Ooh. That kind of stuff. That's coming from the, Jungle book. I wanna Be Like You. And, um, and, and, and I, and I get it that I've met some amazing people in my career and I've looked up to them, and I think that's healthy. But when this person did something very negative, it had a very negative impact on this young woman professional. And I was really disappointed because I thought, what a shame that this young woman isn't given the nutrition to thrive instead, kind of chopping off her petals at the top of her flowering bloom. Do you know what I mean? I'm thinking nurture her instead of, you know, do. Making her weak and her flowers not shine so brightly. And in the end, you know, we talked about this individual that had the negative impact and I said, look, this person does have a reputation, right, for being like this. They have a reputation for being quite mean and saying things off the cuff, maybe not thinking about people's feelings, and certainly not managing or having any leadership with empathy. So what made you think you were different? All she's done is like the scorpion. You know the story about the scorpion, right?

Mike:

Yeah. I I do. They show their true nature no matter what. Yeah.

Yoyo:

Correct. So when you get older, and as we are, this is the beautiful thing about young people, you get this opportunity to say, look, expect the scorpion to sting. Mm-hmm. And all you have, all you are doing is you're preparing yourself. And it's not like being battle ready all the time, but just expect if eight people are telling you that someone's gonna act a certain way, then expect them to be like that to you. Don't expect them to be any different. Set your boundaries set what is and what is not acceptable. But it's a lot easier said than done, isn't it?

Mike:

It is a lot easier said than done. And less people get the idea that this book is sort of, you know, grim and soul searching. It definitely has its serious parts, but it's also a lighter read because, um, some of it I take breaks between chapters and to talk about leadership, sort of lessons that come from, you know, the, from mass media. So I call them breakaways.'cause breakaway is a term in hockey and I'm a hockey player and blah, blah, blah. I thought that was You are not,

Yoyo:

are you? I had no idea, Mike. Yeah,

Mike:

so the one breakaway is, um, leadership lessons from movies, uh, for leadership lessons for security professionals. Another one is from streaming series, another one is from TV commercials. Oh yes. Another one is from comics. And so it, it really, it's like, all right, this was kind of heavy. I was talking about, um, you know, leadership philosophy or whatever, theories. Now I get to read about like, like. What this movie says about leadership like Aaron Brockovich or whatever says about leadership and not a typical leadership movie. You know, not talking about war movies or sports movies, you know, talk, you know, um, I'm trying to remember what movies I do, you know, you

Yoyo:

made me think of when I read that bit, I was thinking of cool runnings.

Mike:

Oh yeah.

Yoyo:

cause it's such That's great. A kind. It's not a, and for those that obviously might be too young for this, it's about a Jamaican bobsleigh team who fought all the odds to have a bobsleigh team in the Olympics. Um, and of course there's no snow in Jamaica. Uh, and, and it was a bit of a joke and it was, um, John Candy wasn't it? That was in, in that Yeah. Lesson before he died. And it's such a good movie and it's not a movie that I go back to and watch very often, but of all the movies that I could gain inspiration from in the way that when I was reading your book it, and thank you for sending, I was thinking Cool Runnings, it's teaches you that the, the unachievable or the perceived unachievable is never, always unachievable. It's about finding the way through of finding the why, finding the purpose, finding the how. Right.

Mike:

Yes, exactly. And some of the lessons from these movies like are profound or even TV commercials.

Yoyo:

Yeah.

Mike:

Some of the TV commercials have been better than movies. I, um, I did a presentation, a rims, a rims presentation a couple years ago, or last year, I forget what it was with Chris Stitt. And one of the aspects was I was talking about risk leadership and I was, I was talking about the movies and how that is often movies are much more, um, uh, you, you're accessible than sort of abstract, you know, lessons from work or whatever. And I had people audience,

Yoyo:

the same with soaps as well. Yes. They tend to carry underlying, uh, arc messages, don't they?

Mike:

Yes. And I had the audience name. Movies that they thought showed leadership and, you know, and the ones I got that were really clever, I hadn't thought of'em. But, you know, I, some of the ones that I had in the book are, um, Fargo. I know that's one because Francis McDormand plays the pregnant police chief, you know, in a, in a tiny town. And, and she shows really, you know, excellent leadership. Yeah. She has her foibles and everything, but I think those kind of like, people are like, all right, I don't have to. Live in this land of crises for a second. This is fun. I could talk about A NFL or a Coke commercial or whatever, or, you know, uh, peanuts, you know, and had his Snoopy show leadership or whatever. This is kind of, I just wanted to lighten the load a little bit and, but

Yoyo:

Yogi Bear did, right? He was always responsible in the National Park. That's right, wasn't he?

Mike:

Yes, boo boo.

Yoyo:

So, um, look, I can't help but notice, Mike, and you never told me this, but on page 129, everybody, uh, of the digital copy, uh, becoming a thought leader, you mentioned the Security Circle podcast, and it's listed as one of the top security and leadership podcasts worth listening to. There you go. You heard it from Mike Gipps.

Mike:

Mike, that means it's true everyone.

Yoyo:

That is a huge compliment, certainly to, to me and to anybody who listens to the security circle as well. So why did you choose to highlight that what do you think sort of strong interviewing does bring into the security profession?

Mike:

Well, everyone knows that strong interviewing means a difference between solving a case and not solving a case. So right there in investigative interviewing, um, it means, um, but in a, on a daily basis, it means, uh, getting more out of your workers, it, it means, um, bringing in the right staff, you know, during, um, uh, when you're doing job interviews. Um, yeah, you are particularly gifted at bringing out things that people, and I've heard it all the time, and lest you think this is just me saying it, I outsourced a lot of this. I, I went on LinkedIn and I said, what are your favorite podcasts? And yes, I do like yours a lot and I would've listed it anyway, but the, the masses spoke and they said. Yours among a couple others. And then they, I pulled out some quotes of what people said, so I wasn't making it up. I wanted some support. So I didn't want this whole book to be okay, this is what Mike Gibs think, who cares? This will reflects the broader community. So you should be proud'cause it's me, but it's definitely not just me. Um, no. And that,

Yoyo:

and

Mike:

there are a lot of podcasts out there and yours is different in that it's a little more personal, it's a little more probing. The questions are, and you also have a really good voice. Um, after I did my first thanks Mike one with you, the podcast, someone asked me like. You know, wow, that person is a professional. Is that person a professional broadcaster? Whatever. Someone thought it was ai, it was so flawless. And I was like, no, this is not ai. I know the person. It's like, she's just very good and you've got a silky voice and it makes like you want to answer your question so that, that's no small part of it, but it's the, the substance of the questions themselves. And it's also your personality. You know, I remember when I, we talked first you, you said I was a, um, kindred spirit or something, and you and I noticed that, and certainly we are, but I noticed how you form a connection. Every one of your podcasts, you create a personal connection with your guests. And you need to,'cause then you can get honest, interesting answers and they're, they're, they go off script. Um, so, and, that's how you get a good podcast. That's how you get a good interview.

Yoyo:

I listen to some of the, uh, big interviewers here in the eighties on TV shows, you know, where they interview famous people and, and you know, they'll all tell you that the key is to research their guest. Mm-hmm. And, and I can be very frank and say that, you know, there's one particular individual that I was very happy to interview on the podcast and I did the usual thing. You know, I'd love to set up a 30 minute, usually 25 minutes pre-chat just so we can scope out what we're gonna talk about is me a really good feel about them, what their motives are, their purpose is what they wanna achieve. So I can help coax that out in the conversation. And the person said to me, and it's only right that they remain anonymous, but the person said to me, I don't need to pre-chat. Let's just go straight in and record. And I canceled it because I'm like, that's not how I operate. I'm supposed to come straight in and interview you and get to know you and get the best out of your conversation. What is this? Just to sit back and hear you chat all the time, kind of conversation. That's not really what I try to achieve. Does that make sense?

Mike:

Yeah. Good for you, for, you know, sticking up for yourself and canceling it.'cause some people might have been cowed, especially if it's a prominent person and you were really happy to get them. And they're like, well,, I put aside time for you. Why are you not doing this? So good for you.

Yoyo:

Yeah. I just, I look, I thought it was a bit arrogant and I'm thinking, you know, one of the biggest criticisms that I've had from devout listeners is when they feel that it becomes too q and a and the other person maybe holds court too long and it's not conversational. So I'm always coaching people to definitely be conversational because I love talking about me too. Um, but, um, interestingly, I've gotta go back to thank you for everything that you said, by the way, in the book. And, and it does mean an awful lot and it will certainly mean a lot to everybody listening. And I have a couple of follow up questions, but I wanna go back to something we just interviewed Kathy Lavinder, who is a very prominent figure in the security recruiting market. Mm-hmm. And I could not believe how much her podcast was downloaded. We attracted a huge number of new listeners just because of her podcast alone. And I asked her the question in the interview about mental health, when you have a known mental health diagnosis or a mental health challenge that is likely to affect how you know you approach your job. I said to her, at what stage in the interview process should you bring it up? Now, I'm not gonna tell you what she said, but I was very surprised by her answer. And it just goes to show that we are, and she was beautifully eloquent. She's a very articulate speaker and very interesting to listen to. It just goes to show that from a mental health perspective, we've still got quite a long way to go, haven't we?

Mike:

Yeah, and I listened to part of Kathy's. I haven't listened to the whole thing, so I'll get on that. I know. Don't tell Kathy that.

Yoyo:

Oh,

Mike:

well I assume she'll be tagged since she's mentioned in this, but I saw her the other day at, I think it was at Osac and we didn't talk very long, but she said something very kind to me. My mother passed away a couple of, um, months ago and she had read an article about her, she was a copywriter for movies, and she wrote the line for Alien in Space. No one can hear you scream, and you could see the poster behind me. And she said, oh, that was a really great writeup and I enjoyed learning about her. And she was a remarkable woman. That was very controversial to say she didn't have to do that. Um, yeah, she is very articulate. She used to be my neighbor. She. Um, lived just a couple blocks so we'd see each other walking our dogs and everything, so I could sort of get on the side, oh, what's going on in the, uh, security hiring world, you know, and get a, get a little insight from her. But yeah, she's definitely, there are very few well-respected and well-known recruiters in the security world. And she's in the small handful of them, for sure.

Yoyo:

100%. Well, we'll be sure to listen to the other half. Um, Mike. Yeah. Well, I've gotta, I've gotta ask you, you know, about your own vulnerability really, because one of the things, as I was reading the book, I was asking myself, what's the one leadership mistake that you've made that you think has shaped this book more than anything else?

Mike:

Ooh, that's a good question. And now I'm gonna have to ponder it. I'm stalling for time as I ponder.

Yoyo:

Come, come here for the best questions on the Security Circle podcast. Yeah.

Mike:

Um, let me see. As a matter of fact, I'm kind of glancing right now, I pulled up my book'cause I have a, um, there's the, the heart of the book are chapters that talk about what core, what I believe core attributes of leadership are. And I'm just kind of scanning that now to see, okay, what, um, what, where have I failed the most? Or where am I weakest? So, I mean, it could

Yoyo:

just be a leadership learning, you know? Yeah. I mean for, if I was to look at my own, my own story, I would say sometimes my, my biggest leadership learning is in, in kind of bearing my head in the sand. If I think something's not going well and it could e and, and that means that sometimes I can close off the visor to a threat coming my way. I, I, I can see only the best in an employee and I didn't see that they were kind of coming for me in a really bad way. So, um, and I could be a bit naive in that sense. And so that's kind of shaped a lot of what I do now. But I'm looking for something that you've sort of learned that shaped, the book.

Mike:

Yes. As a matter of fact, I just kind of glanced at the table of contents and I was like, oh, this was so easy. I didn't need to extemporize for this. It's, um, knowing your limits and not try to do everything.'cause when you try to do everything, you will fail and it'll affect the things you already do well. It'll erode those things and it will hurt not only your relationships, but your reputation. I. Take on almost every, someone asked me to write a story on an article on something. I don't know that much about it. It's like, oh, I know who does, and I'm a writer and I wanna find out about it.'cause I love learning and I love, you know, writing about things. I'll just do it. You know, it's like, or do you wanna join this board or do you wanna volunteer? You know, to be on the standards committee? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm still struggling with it. It's not a good leadership trait to take on everything. You have to know how to delegate. You have to know how to say no. And I've talked to that, that's part of the book. And it's someone I talked to, uh, leadership coaches, Angela Scalpel, who gives very good advice. You should read the book. I'm trying to follow her advice. She's, it's very easy to follow'cause it's systematic. She says, first, you know, do this, then do that. It's like, um, and I, I admit that I'm still struggling. It's, I'm not. I don't say that all these qualities of leaders and I have like maybe 20 that are mentioned in the book that I excel at, at, at all of them or, or even most of them. But probably the one I struggle with most is saying no to people and trying to, letting people down. Um, and I'd like to say, okay, yeah, I've figured it out, but I still do it. Um, and because I'm like, okay, just this one more time, just this one. It's like being an addict a little bit. It's like I want to be able to help people. I wanna mention one more person in the book. You know, there are a lot of people mentioned, but I almost find myself apologizing when someone has a good story in the book and it didn't, you know, a good story didn't make it into the book. Like, oh, they got into the next one. That's one of my foibles, my failings, and I'm struggling with it. And it was, you know, it. When I wrote the original column and I adapted it for the book, it was just a reminder of my continuing effort slash struggle to overcome that.

Yoyo:

I was listening. You were brilliant by the way. One of the last questions I wanna ask you is around the future of leadership. What leadership competencies in all of the experience that you have, do you think will still define the next decade, especially with ai, a gen agenda, ai, generative ai, social change, and risk convergence? What do, what do people need to be focusing on now in the short term and in the future?

Mike:

Yeah, it's a really poignant question, and I try to address it in the book, this whole section on the future of leadership. Uh, as you probably know, I don't have a definitive answer. Um, but I think yeah, really with, and, and you kind of nailed it with AI transforming the landscape, um, the likelihood of, of convergence of risk, um, especially as new avenues of risk emerge. Um, I think that, uh. Certainly continuous learning is crucial. You've gotta keep up on this stuff. Um, you've, I know people who are terrified of AI and like, I'm never gonna use ai. If you don't use ai, you're gonna fall behind, right? AI isn't perfect, but there's agent ai, um, generative ai, they're gonna help make things easier. Um, they're, they're gonna speed things up. They're gonna be wrong a lot of the time. They need, uh, review and assessment, but they'll put you far ahead of where you were before without it. So, um, and as new vectors of attacks, and especially with social media and who knows what the new risks will be, but they're never, they never go away. They just, they just get added to, right. It's accretive. So I think sort of. Um, willingness to learn, not even willingness to learn to a, a, um, passion for learning and to adapt are probably, and, and retain your humanity as everything turns digital. And really, uh, um, value what a human can bring as opposed to what a, uh, what analytics can do or what an algorithm can do. And really know how to deploy your people so that they are engaged and energized and are able to do things and relate to people in a way that machines and technology can't. So, I know Ben's mentioned a bunch of things, but they all kind of go together.

Yoyo:

what is the kind of the one thing you want people to do after reading the book? If every reader just took one concrete action after finishing your book, what should it be?

Mike:

I think they, I would be happy if they were inspired by some of the stories in the book and said, you know, I've been meaning to do this or that, or, here's a cha leadership challenge that I've never taken on. I feel inspired because of some of the people I mentioned, or you know, McLean, SEN, who's, um, a security professional in Nigeria. He negotiated a truce between rival gangs or maybe even terrorist groups in a section of Nigeria like that. It was of tremendous, um, danger to him and nobody else kind of dared to put their f so I don't, you know, that sort of thing, but it doesn't have to be that grandiose or, or that monumental, just sort of, um, taking a step out there into leadership. Looking at some of what I wrote and say, okay, here are examples.'cause I don't just talk about principles of leadership. I talk about specific situations where that people didn't necessarily think about, oh yeah, this is a leadership situation where leadership where, okay, I'm between jobs. How I, how my leader, when I'm between jobs, I work alone. How my leader then, you know, if they could take something, some of the stories or any of the situations that are presented and say and kind of, and able to step out into leadership or adapt how they lead based on, on these learnings, I would be more than happy. And if someone said to me, oh, I read this and I was inspired by this person and I changed my leadership style, or I adapted it'cause I didn't think about that and now getting all these benefits, that would be, I'd be over the moon.

Yoyo:

That's a super cool answer. Mike, your book reads like a handbook for, and I could, I could, I'm happy to do a voiceover for you for this, but get this, your book reads like a handbook for navigating, chaos, complexity, and humanity all at the same time. Now, if someone love had, now, if someone only had 30 seconds with you, how would you explain what this book really teaches?

Mike:

How to grow and thrive as a leader, a security or risk leader in a rapidly changing world, but really based on what you can give to others and how you can develop and pr and, and build others into leadership. That I would say that is the core of the book.

Yoyo:

And lastly, are you ready for your last question?

Mike:

Yes. It's gonna be a trick question.

Yoyo:

Your chapter on podcast includes a line about me. You wrote that. I hear what people aren't saying. So let me ask you, Mike, what is this book saying that most readers won't immediately hear?

Mike:

Ooh. Um, that's really good. It's like, now I'm gonna stall for time as I think What, what does this book say? The music, that's the whole, right? What is this book saying? What most people? Um hmm. Uh, yeah, you just put on the Jeopardy music. If, it were the other show that you had, um, what was it? The Security, security Vine

Yoyo:

Yeah. You put on the

Mike:

sec the, the Jeopardy. We would, yes. Yes.

Yoyo:

Oh, that was honestly recording. The security vine with those guys is so much fun. I just, I still have the bandwidth for it to be honest now, but we'll probably do some feature episodes, you know, next year I'll get in touch with them again and say, look, let's just pull out a series of six or something because they're a lot of fun. Both.

Mike:

I think that someone once said to me, we were talking about, I think I mentioned this to you, we're talking movie Groundhog Day.'cause we talked about Dead Ryerson and how that movie shows that you could be just a change of perspective. You could be from one day to the next. You could be, you could change, you know, you can't change fundamentally who you are, but you can grow as a person. And I think that sort of. The underlying theme of this book here are just sort of nuggets of examples and, and lessons and, and life learnings from your colleagues, your peers who are in the same place as you or have been in the same place facing the same challenges, and that they're just taking it step by step. Every day is a chance to learn and, and tend to do new things and to, to, you know, awaken new passions and interests and, and, and meet new people. So if, if that's, that's, that's what the book doesn't say that that's in the subtext.

Yoyo:

It's not in the manual. Check it out. It's not in the manual. We're, we're gonna be providing, uh, is that the full title of it or is it of a different,

Mike:

It's not in the manual. Real world Leadership for Security and Risk Professionals.

Yoyo:

There you go, ladies and gentle bums. That's the, uh, that's the name of the book, and we'll provide the link so that you can download it, uh, just before Christmas. Mike Gipps, thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.

Mike:

Again, a pleasure and honor as always. Yo-yo,