Samenvatting

This article describes the research of an undeveloped area in Cyber Security: the role of Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and the needed soft skills in a leadership role. A dual research that has a CISO track and a business leaders track covers the demand by the business and the view of the CISO. This research gives the insight on how soft skills are included in job ads and via a dual Delphi study the CISO perspective and business leader perspective on the relevance of soft skills and leadership. We learned that the soft skills for the Dutch CISO have a very different ordering compared with the US based research of soft skills by Robles (2012). The practical outcome of this gives the insights on the soft skills needed, which leadership style is best fitted for the CISO and how organisations should include the focus on soft skills in recruitment.