“The worst piece of leadership advice I got was: ‘be an authentic leader.’” Of course be true to yourself and your values, says Ciaran Martin CB, professor of practice in the management of public organisations at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. “The bit I interpreted wrongly, which made it the worst piece of advice, was to just act yourself at work,” he adds. In this episode, Ciaran reflects on his long civil service career including stints at the Cabinet Office, GCHQ and latterly as the founding chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre. He considers the switch from central government into the intelligence agency; why “monolithic” leadership dictats from Whitehall were useless when working with technical specialists; the experience of publicly fronting the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack; and whether Northcote-Trevelyan still holds.