Delegates attending the Security Management Stage 1 Course in Lagos, Nigiera, have been examining skills gaps for entrants into security management. Almost all of the delegates are graduates in varied subjects including economics, geography, computer science, law, international relations, philosophy, business administration etc, in some cases at Masters level. Interestingly, relatively few have military or police backgrounds, the underlying philosophy being that military and police skills can be contracted in, and that in security management requires, like almost all other mainstream business disciplines, business acumen, sound academic credentials and operational knowledge as bedrock.
Commenting on the difficulties of this approach, one delegate remarked that in his experience many CEOs, especially in non-multinational companies, tended to persist in the view that the number #1 prerequisite for the position of security manager was past military or other government security agency experience, since all the incumbent needs to do, in their opinion, is to position guards to man the gates and the premises and supervise them in a military fashion.
Specifically, this participant states: “Clearly, in my view, a security manager needs more than just past military/police/etc experience (that is if needs it at all) to function in that role. I agree that successful security operations management requires the incumbent to be many things. He must be fully conversant with both the business operation and his core competence – security. In addition to this knowledge he needs a whole range of generic business skills that must be developed. A security manager must have the basic arithmetical, IT and presentation delivery skills to demonstrate quantitatively that he is delivering a genuine return on investment.
Again his inter-personal skills must be well honed not only to stand him in good stead at every level of the business but also to give him the leading edge as he liaises with, and cultivates relationships with, outside agencies such as the police and intelligence services. Furthermore, the incumbent must be capable of functional management in all of its applications. This includes managing projects, selecting contractors and consultants, leading the security team and, especially, managing time”.
The next Security Management Stage 1 Course takes place in Gurgaon (Delhi) India, 25 August - 5 September, and repeated 22 September - 3 October. Contact Janet for more details or to reserve a place.
