Its Not in the Manual: Real-World Leadership for Security and Risk Professionals

What makes a great leader in security and risk? It’s not in the manual.

It’s Not In the Manual shatters the illusion that effective leadership in security, risk, and resilience is all about titles, certifications, or rigid frameworks. In a world where cyber threats, insider risk, reputational landmines, and geopolitical chaos overlap, this book delivers something far more valuable: hard-earned wisdom, human vulnerability—and a wry sense of humor.

Written with both erudition and pop culture sensibility, the book blends field-tested insights with sharp wit, drawing from sources as varied as Socrates and Snoopy, Bill Gates and Bill Bryson, quantum physics and playground fistfights. If you're looking for a dry leadership tome, keep looking. This is leadership with levity, candor, and conscience.

Whether you're navigating a crisis, building a converged risk function, mentoring the next generation, or just trying to get your team to stop using “password123,” the lessons here are real-world, actionable, and often unexpected.

Drawing on hundreds of conversations with practitioners, thought leaders, and executive coaches—from museum security directors to startup founders to crisis-tested veterans—the book moves fluently between the tactical and the philosophical. You’ll find leadership lessons in Texas Hold ‘Em and trauma, case law and commercials, streaming series and streaming data.

From managing complexity and polycrisis to fostering wellness and adaptive thinking, It’s Not In the Manual goes where conventional guides don’t. It doesn’t just teach you how to lead. It shows you why it matters, when it falters, and what it takes to lead through uncertainty with integrity.

If you’ve ever felt unprepared to lead in the face of chaos, contradiction, or moral ambiguity, this book is for you.

Witty yet grounded, insightful yet practical, It’s Not In the Manual is the leadership companion every security and risk professional didn’t know they needed—until now.

Michael Gips is a highly regarded executive and thought leader in security and risk management, as well as an attorney, writer, journalist, researcher, and business professional. He is Managing Director in the ESRM practice at Kroll, where he consults for clients including multinational corporations, the AmLaw 100, critical infrastructure, higher education, family offices, real estate companies, cultural institutions, and other organizations. For six years prior he served as principal of his own firm, Global Insights in Professional Security.

Previously Mike served as the Chief Global Knowledge and Learning Officer for ASIS International, where he oversaw Learning, Content, Certification, Standards & Guidelines, Production, Enterprise Security Risk Management, and other departments. Mike was also responsible for ASIS’s corporate security function. In addition, he developed the CSO Roundtable (now the CSO Center for Leadership and Development), an organization that includes hundreds of the most senior security executives at the biggest corporations around the world. He also served as editor and publisher of Security Management, where he authored hundreds of articles. Mike also was a major contributor to ASIS’s standards and guidelines on ESRM and Senior Security Executive.

Mike has received many commendations, including Top 40 Global Thought Leader (Life Safety Alliance, 2024, 2025), top 20 most influential security leaders in the Americas (Security Journal Americas, 2023, 2024), #1 most influential global security thought leader in security (IFSEC, 2022), top twenty most influential global security leaders (International Security Journal, 2022), Outstanding U.S. Security Consultant (OSPAs, 2021), #6 most influential global thought leader in security (IFSEC, 2021), and one of the most influential people in security (Security magazine, 2019). He has received almost 20 awards for his writing, including some of the writings that have been adapted for this book.

On the volunteer side, Mike is president of the Life Safety Alliance, an officer for the Global Consortium of Law Enforcement Training Executives, and head of the security committee for a large house of worship near Washington, DC.

Among his many research publications are papers, reports, and chapters on ESRM, the size and scope of the security sector, convergence, blockchain, business continuity and Covid, security professionalization, the use of drones by law enforcement, and security as a business enabler.

Mike frequently presents on security, risk, leadership, and legal topics at conferences and webinars, on issues such as disinformation, insider risk, liability, trends in access control, and security skill sets.

Mike’s security-related certifications included Certified Protection Professional, Chartered Security Professional, Certified in Security Risk Management Body of Knowledge, Certified Insider Risk Programme Manager, and Registered Presilience Professional.

A graduate of Tufts University (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude) and Harvard Law School, Mike also has obtained security certificates from R.L. Oatman & Associates (2006), the Wharton School (2015), Tel Aviv University International (2016), IE Business School Madrid (2017), Signpost Six (2021), and Risk 2 Resilience (2024).