How to Become a CISO: 3 Career Paths and the Traits That Matter Most

In my professional experience as a corporate and field CISO (Chief Information Security Officer), I’ve found there are three career paths that can help any cybersecurity professional understand how to become a CISO and grow into the role successfully. While these paths may seem straightforward, the demands, stress, and responsibility of becoming a CISO should be understood before anyone embarks on this journey. To elaborate, there is a joke one of my colleagues told years ago that holds very true today: “CISOs sleep like babies—we are up every few hours.” And while many CISOs have shared commonalities, like unusually poor sleep quality, the path to achieving this career goal, in my opinion, is independent of the goal itself and can vary. Therefore, consider these three career paths to achieve your objective of becoming a CISO:

• The Cybersecurity Climber – A tenured cyber security professional that has been promoted through the ranks to the CISO position due to their technical and business maturity.

• The Executive Transfer – A seasoned C-Level executive in an adjacent department, such as CTO or CIO, that assumes the position of CISO in order to satisfy business objectives and regulatory compliance requirements.

• The Educated Strategist – An educated executive who has obtained a CSO, CISO, or similar master’s degree and has become CISO based on experience and accreditations.

If you're a cybersecurity professional wondering how to become a CISO, understanding these trajectories (and the traits needed to succeed in the role) can help you better position yourself for the future. Whether you rise through the technical ranks, pivot from a neighboring C-suite role, or come in with specialized executive education, what matters most is how you lead, communicate, obtain visibility, and manage complexity as a cybersecurity leader.

In this blog, I break down the three most common CISO career paths—and what it really takes to thrive in the role once you get there.

Based on these three career paths, it is not easy to determine if one journey is better for an enterprise or an individual versus another. Each path has its strengths and trade-offs. However, while there’s no definitive “best” way to become a CISO, I have found that successful CISOs tend to share a handful of key traits. Without these, even the most experienced cybersecurity leaders can fall short personally and for the security of the organization:

Communication

Successful CISOs need expectational communication skills—both oral and written. Enterprise CISOs must clearly articulate risks, incidents, strategies, and priorities to stakeholders across the business, including the board, vendors, internal teams, and supporting organizations. Without these skills, the simplest issues could lead to costly missteps, delayed responses, or poorly executed security programs. These skills are essential for any CISO aiming to succeed at the executive leadership level.

Honesty

It sounds simple, but honesty is one of the most important characteristics for a CISO. All communications with all parties, especially legal, must be honest, complete, and accurate. Full, accurate disclosure—especially during or after a breach—can make the difference between a manageable incident and a reputational disaster. Brushing over issues, sugarcoating problems, or failing to disclose information can lead to disastrous results. A CISO must know how to be candid, tactful, and transparent based on their audience, and when appropriate, full disclosure is always a CISO’s best approach.

Technical Awareness

Contrary to popular belief, a CISO does not need to be extremely technical, but having enough technical fluency to understand risks and guide responses is critical for maintaining credibility and driving decisions as a cybersecurity leader. The CISO will be working with extremely technical staff who can get into the details of an incident, project, or budget. A good CISO at the enterprise level (not necessarily true for small- and medium-sized businesses) should not have hands on the keyboard to assist during a breach or with the installation of a solution. They need to stay neutral, informed, and objective so they can process and relegate the information from team members to other appropriate stakeholders. For example, a CISO does not need to know how to configure IPSec, but should know how DNS and VPN differ.

Compliance Savvy

Every enterprise, regardless of geolocation, has some legal regulatory compliance requirements. This is especially true if the organization is multi-national. Every enterprise CISO should be well-versed in the regulatory compliance requirements that are “enforceable” against the business. The word “enforceable” is key to this requirement. Many frameworks, compliance regulations, and standards organizations offer guidance for cyber security, but are not enforceable unless they are a part or a contracted or mandated by a regional law. Staying current on the nuances of enforceable requirements is one of the most important responsibilities in modern CISO roles. For example, Zero Trust is an architectural and control framework, but it’s not a law today anywhere. Additionally, visibility into the business helps with all compliance initiatives, regardless of geolocation.

Broad Responsibility

Enterprise organizations have multiple departments that manage security, and enterprise CISOs must take ownership of cybersecurity across all departments: IT, cloud, application development, and physical security. When security functions are fragmented across teams, silos and confusion often follow. The CISO—or ideally a CSO—should be the central orchestrator to align budgets, resolve conflicts, and drive unified strategy for physical and cyber-security across the entire organization.

Personality Fit

A CISO needs a few additional traits that will ensure their longevity within an organization and help maintain their own personal health. The role is high-stress, and burnout is real. Patience, calmness, trustworthiness, and emotional consistency are must-haves. These personality traits often determine a CISO’s longevity and success in high-pressure, enterprise cybersecurity environments. Any negative traits, like losing their temper, will ultimately be destructive to the business. It has been reported in the past that CISOs have a high rate of drug and alcohol addiction due the stress of the role. The best enterprise CISO’s have learned how to manage the pressure without letting it consume them. They’ve (no joke) learned how to sleep at night, and how to maintain balance through any crisis or project.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how to become a CISO. But whether you're climbing the technical ladder or coming in from another executive role, the key to long-term success is mastering both the human and strategic sides of cybersecurity leadership.

At BeyondTrust, we work with CISOs across the globe who are tackling these challenges every day. Ready to take the next step? Start by building the traits that matter most—and see how strong leadership, clear communication, and technical awareness can carry your cybersecurity career all the way to the boardroom.

Learn how BeyondTrust's cybersecurity solutions support modern CISOs in managing risk and leading with confidence.