The Thankless Job:

[Lamont29]

Leadership can guide your success or failure. If you are amidst good leadership, your own ambitions and initiatives (calibrated effectively) will allow you to reach unimaginable heights. Good leaders want the very best for their subordinates. So, good leaders will go out of their way to ensure that their subordinates have every resource and all the knowledge required to be their best.

A bad leader on the other hand, is not inspiring at all. I have had experienced some poor leaders who might recognize talent in their subordinates but will go out of their way to suppress those contributions. This is the reason why good companies impose measurable key performance indicators (KPI’s) upon their leaders. Some companies and organizations we know today have very short shelf lives as they have refused to learn this lesson. It’s more important to teach your leaders to be good leaders today in a knowledge-based economy. This is especially true when information security professionals are pivotal to your organization’s success. Today and tomorrow, it will be a job seeker’s market for people with great InfoSec skills.

[Steve-Wilme]

It worth mentioning that some of the bad 'leaders' will simply steal or take all the credit for the work of their staff, whilst simultaneously doing all they can to demotivate them by being difficult to deal with.  Don't make the mistake of pandering to such leaders; they'll withhold training opportunities, deny leave, call you out of hours, double book you on assignments etc etc and juniors entering InfoSec will think about leaving the field as that'll be their only experience.  The number of 'give it another go, but not here' conversations I've had ....

[Lamont29]

When leaders become bad actors, this isn't only immoral, it's a security risk. When employees are made to feel devalued, those good employees hit the job boards and seek to leave the company. I am proud of my contributions to the City of Chicago and Cook County, IL. In my leadership roles, I have always sought to stamp out inequities. Overall morale improves and security professionals get the recognition that they deserve. I feel good knowing that I have made a positive difference to the organizations that I've led. 

[Steve-Wilme]

I think maybe the understanding of what a good leader is is variable.  Some seem to think it's being ambitious, focusing on cutting edge tech, taking uncalculated risks, leading transformative change etc.,

But I've always felt its a little more low key than that.  People at all levels want to achieve; to feel that they've contributed and made a difference.  A good leader will recognise that and look out for every individual that makes up the team.