Debbie Laskey's Blog: Leadership Lessons from #PostElectionSeries Featuring Rebecca Herold

As I announced in my commentary about the 2024 Presidential election, during November and December, I have featured a timely #PostElectionSeries with a number of inspiring women authors, leaders, and influencers. To read the previous Q&A's in the series, search #PostElectionSeries on this blog.

Today, to conclude the series, I've invited Rebecca Herold to provide commentary about the election, leadership, gender bias, misinformation, and more. But first, a brief introduction.

Based in Des Moines, Iowa, and with over 30 years of IT, security, and privacy experience, Rebecca Herold is the founder of The Privacy Professor Consultancy (2004) and of Privacy & Security Brainiacs SaaS services (2021). She has authored 22 published books so far, and co-authored NIST catalogs NISTIR 7628, NISTIR 8259, SP 800-213, NISTIR 8425 and TN 2066. She has served as an expert witness for cases covering HIPAA, criminals using IoT devices, social engineering, stolen personal data of retirement housing residents, and tracking app users with Meta Pixels. Rebecca hosts Data Security & Privacy with the Privacy Professor, and since early 2018, she has hosted the Voice America podcast/radio show, Data Security & Privacy with the Privacy Professor.

QUESTION: In Lyn Chamberlin's article entitled, "When Brand Betrays Us," she wrote, "Branding is supposed to be about truth, or at least a piece of it. At its best, branding is storytelling, the kind that resonates, inspires, and speaks to who we are. But what happens when a brand warps into something sinister, built on lies, misinformation, and manipulation? What happens when a brand betrays not only our trust but our institutions?...Branding can empower, but it can also deceive. Trump's brand isn't just a lesson in how to build an indelible image. It's a cautionary tale — a reminder that without honesty and accountability, brand can become a weapon that betrays us all."

What are your thoughts?

(Read the full article here:

https://lynchamberlin.substack.com/p/when-brand-betrays-us)

REBECCA HEROLD: I completely agree about honesty being absolutely necessary for branding. Particularly in my business that helps organizations create effective information and data security and privacy compliance programs. Every action that relates to security and privacy must be defensible with supported verifiable facts and evidence. Also in my work as an expert witness supporting legal cases where judgments usually depend upon such verifiable facts and evidence. I believe for my business fields this is still true. Other businesses that have not been honest, even if it was because of an error or some other type of situation, have often had their brand value and reputation significantly damaged. Often beyond repair.

Just look at CrowdStrike. It built up a reputation of dependability and cybersecurity excellence over the years. And then on July 14, 2024, it caused a huge, global outage that had widespread repercussions across various industries across the world. It was basically caused by a sloppy software update for a sensor configuration update for Windows systems. It has caused over $5.5 billion in losses, and has spawned huge numbers of legal claims, significant customer losses and reputational damage. Many class-action lawsuits are also going through the courts. CrowdStrike’s value was quickly cut in half. Their customers felt betrayed; they depended upon CrowdStrike to provide dependable security, and yet, their vulnerabilities in their software update process resulted in a huge security incident that caused business stoppages all over the world.

They are now trying to demonstrate accountability, and regain trust, dependability, and build back their customer base.

While there are certainly similarities, business organizations are generally different from celebrities-turned-politicians who have been in the public spotlight their entire lives, and have even managed to gain fans despite demonstrable dishonesty.

QUESTION: In Katie Rogers article in THE NEW YORK TIMES, she wrote, "The United States has been led by men for all of its 248 years, and that will continue for at least four more. On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris became the latest woman to fail to break the gender barrier to the presidency, and the second to be defeated by Donald Trump...The United States lags behind several other nations — Britain, Germany, Israel, India, Canada, and, this year, Mexico — which have chosen women as leaders. Men do still run the world, numerically. Only about a third of the countries in the United Nations have ever had a woman head of the government. Just 13 of the body’s 193 member countries are currently led by women, according to the Pew Research Center."

(Read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/harris-woman-president.html)

In Dana Theus' post-election article entitled "Women, Power, and Fear," she wrote, "Three times in twelve years, an old white man, now a convicted felon, has run for the highest office in the land. When he ran against another, more qualified old white guy, he lost. Both times he ran against vibrant, more qualified women, he won. Looking at the pattern, I don't think it's defensible to blame the female candidates or their campaigns. I truly worry that the majority of our nation — women and men alike — simply do not trust women enough to give us power."

(Read the full article here:

https://inpowerwomen.substack.com/p/women-power-and-fear)

What were your thoughts about the election results?

REBECCA HEROLD: When I was in 6th grade, in a rural school where my 20-students class was the largest in all the school's K-12 grades, and we shared a large classroom with the 13-students' 5th grade class, I was nominated and ran for the 5th/6th grade student body president against a fellow male 6th grader. We “campaigned” for four weeks, with the teachers asking us each to make speeches to the students throughout that time. I didn’t only lose; I was obliterated, 31 votes for the winner, and 2 votes for me…one my own vote, and the other vote from a male 5th grader, who I didn’t even know hardly at all, who told me I was smarter and nicer than the newly elected president. Even the persons who nominated me voted against me. And my own close female friends voted against me. Everyone I asked as to why they didn't vote for me basically answered, "David is a boy. Girls aren't presidents." That has stuck with me my whole life.

Throughout my 35+ years career, there have been multiple times when I was told by potential clients on more than a few occasions, who asked me to submit a proposal but gave the project to another business, that I didn’t get the contract by saying something generally similar to, "We're just more comfortable working with a business led or owned by a man."

So quite frankly, even with 34 criminal convictions and one count of being accountable (guilty) of sexual assault, I was not surprised that the person with the Y chromosome won; he has been in the public eye for his full adulthood, and perpetuating a wide variety of false statements throughout that time that his long-time followers have always seemed to believe or accept without fail. However, I was greatly disappointed for a variety of reasons.

That statement from decades ago is inexplicably still the view of over fifty percent of voters of all genders: "Girls aren't presidents." I will not be surprised if a woman has not been elected president in my lifetime. However, I will die disappointed in addition to being very sad in not having been able to see that result. I hope I'm wrong.

QUESTION: Katherine Spinney wrote an article entitled, "Silence Is Not the Answer," during a national crisis, however, her words deserve attention now. She wrote, "Silence is not the answer. If fact, it is one of the most damaging plans of action you can take. Despite hopes for the contrary, silence during this time will not shield you or protect you and it will not go unnoticed. Your staff are watching, waiting, begging for you to speak up. This moment in time is going to determine not just how others view you as a leader, but how they view you as a human being. Your words and actions during this time will not just impact your legacy as a leader — they will define it...What is true for all of us is that we must speak up."

How should leaders address the Presidential election results?

(Read the full article here:

https://katherinespinney.com/silence-is-not-the-answer/)

REBECCA HEROLD: Every kind of leader needs to be and stay aware of the initiatives being pursued by the incoming government and how it will impact their organization, employees, customers, clients, consumers, patients, etc. The election is over, and now, instead of dwelling on the same messages that were being made before the election, attention needs to shift to the current reality.

Even if certain government programs are eliminated, an organization’s leaders can still choose to create equity in how all individuals are treated, and the opportunities that are made available to them. Related policies and procedures may need to be tweaked, to remove such references to the programs and to change the related terminologies, but the concepts can still be practiced.

After all, in the United States, it is not illegal to treat everyone with equal respect and consideration. But, if a business, especially small to mid-sized businesses, has clients who have extreme views, they likely will not be able to lose such a client if it means also losing their business. Such situations need to be considered, and addressed tactfully. This will be recognized by employees, especially if they realize that they could lose their livelihoods. The key is for leaders to make strategic decisions and take subsequent actions in accordance with their values and beliefs in ways that will not require compromises in those views and supporting actions. Could this be challenging? Of course. However, anything worthwhile must be addressed through thoughtful planning and consideration. It will likely not be easy, and could take more time than you’d like. But then, most things worthwhile are not accomplished by taking knee-jerk actions or making off-the-cuff statements.

QUESTION: In Barbara McQuade's article in TIME Magazine, she wrote, "The real danger when a leader traffics in half-truths and conflicting claims is that people don’t know what to believe." Instead of looking at leaders' actions, let's swap the perspective. How can employees keep their leaders honest?

(Read the full article here:

https://time.com/7173492/second-trump-term-misinformation-essay/)

REBECCA HEROLD: Employees should never be discouraged from asking questions. Good leaders encourage their employees to ask their leaders questions, applicable to work activities, whatever those questions may be about. This includes their beliefs regarding what may be hot-button topics that are related to how the business is run, impacts business decisions, etc.

Business leaders should be straight-forward and honest in their answers. If for some reason they cannot provide an answer, such as, for legal reasons, to protect privacy of associated individuals, etc., they need to clearly explain the reason why they cannot provide an answer. Ideally, they could consider providing some related information that could address some of the related topic. Some employees may think this is avoiding the question, but if leaders have taken time to consider the question and then how to best explain the response, this can usually be accomplished. Some employees may still not be satisfied, but rarely in such cases will everyone be satisfied with complex and difficult topic discussions.

Debbie Laskey's Blog

Friday, December 27, 2024

Leadership Lessons from #PostElectionSeries Featuring Rebecca Herold

SHARE THIS: Employees should never be discouraged from asking questions. Good leaders encourage their employees to ask their leaders questions, applicable to work activities, whatever those questions may be about. ~Rebecca Herold #PostElectionSeries #DebbieLaskeysBlog

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