Have you ever sat in a business meeting with senior leaders and thought, “I’ve fallen into an episode of the Twilight Zone”? You know the scene. Everyone nods along as an executive declares that “failure is success,” or that “we’re all family,” just before announcing a round of layoffs. The words sound familiar but warped, like the laws of meaning have been suspended. Security isn’t really security. Family isn’t really family. What you are hearing is reframing at work—a quiet rewriting of reality that demands you accept it or be cast as the problem.
Business leaders often talk about security, claiming they believe in it and that it is part of their culture. However, if you listen carefully, you’ll see they are not discussing the same thing you are. What they call security is frequently risk-based operations, which isn’t true security at all. It’s simply calculating what can be lost without damaging the business. This illustrates how reframing works: it takes a word with a shared meaning and stretches it until it favors those in power.
Gaslighting is a gradual process. It’s not enough for leaders to spread these distorted ideas; they must also convince you that their version of reality is true, and that resisting makes you unreasonable. This explains why CISOs are often labeled as the department of no. They are the ones in the room who refuse to equate risk operations with security. The penalty for challenging this framing is being excluded from the consensus. Many careers are built on silently accepting reframes rather than calling them out.
You can see this pattern everywhere. Take the phrase “security must be a business enabler.” It sounds progressive. Nobody wants to be a roadblock. But what it really means is that security should not slow things down, no matter how dangerous the speed becomes. The people who benefit from this framing are not the ones who sit through depositions when data leaks occur or who draft affidavits after a breach. They are not the ones who stay up all night to patch systems while regulators demand answers. They collect the credit for “empowering” the business. The CISO and their team bear the consequences when the house of cards falls.
The “fail fast” mantra is another well-known example. In theory, it comes from quick iteration, testing ideas, discarding failures, and avoiding resource waste. This makes sense in controlled settings. However, taken out of context, it becomes a license to be careless. It turns into an excuse for releasing poor-quality code, running half-baked projects, and dismissing disasters as part of the process. If it works, you’re seen as a visionary. If it doesn’t, you’re simply following the mantra’s demand. No accountability is attached to those who set the tone.
The absurdity of this way of thinking is clear in other fields. No one wants their surgeon to fail quickly. No one wants their airline mechanic to fail quickly. Yet in technology and business, this phrase has been turned into what is considered wisdom. It’s not about iteration. It’s lazy thinking hidden behind a slogan.
Why does this kind of language gain so much traction? Part of it is personality. Certain types of people thrive in environments where reframing is the norm. They are comfortable dominating the room, setting the terms, and acting as if their words define reality. They do not hesitate to tell others to adapt. In everyday life, extroverts can pressure introverts to come out of their shells without consequence. But if an introvert asks for boundaries, suddenly they are seen as the problem. In the workplace, charismatic executives can spout slogans with no substance and be celebrated. Those who ask for substance are painted as obstructionists. The imbalance is not really about introvert versus extrovert but about who controls the narrative.
The family metaphor is another tool in this game. Companies say, “we are all family,” because it sounds supportive and comforting. Families do not abandon each other. Families care. But when layoffs happen, the metaphor breaks down. Real families do not cut ten percent of their members every December to satisfy Wall Street. Real families do not cull nieces and nephews as a Christmas tradition. Yet, in corporate life, this reframing is expected to be accepted as natural.
Other examples are equally empty. Leaders claim “people are our greatest asset,” but assets are bought, sold, and depreciated. They say “move fast and break things,” which is less a rallying cry than an acknowledgment that collateral damage is expected and accepted. They claim “we are a meritocracy,” while relying on networks, pedigree, and bias. They call themselves disruptors, but what they disrupt are systems that serve most people, primarily to extract value for themselves. Each of these reframes a word with a clear meaning into a slogan that conceals harm.
What becomes clear is that the true craft of leadership involves less solving problems and more manipulating language. The skill isn’t in competence but in how long you can keep the illusion alive. How much nonsense can you speak with authority before anyone calls you out? That becomes the measure of success. And if the collapse occurs, you move on before the costs catch up. Someone else is left to clean up the mess.
For CISOs, this dynamic is not just theoretical. It is their lived experience. They are on the receiving end of every reframed slogan. Executives claim security is an enabler, yet they push for speed and convenience that directly undermine security. They talk about family, but treat employees as expendable. They say failure is success, while blaming the CISO when regulators ask questions. The CISO sits in depositions, not the people who twisted the language. The CISO bears the accountability that reframing erases from the executive suite.
This is why the role is so challenging. It’s not just about understanding the threat landscape or building strong defenses. It’s about surviving in a culture where language has been weaponized. Some CISOs adapt by embracing the frameworks themselves, recycling slogans until they sound authentic. Others resist, often paying the price. In either case, the tension between rhetoric and reality erodes trust and accelerates burnout.
The persistence of these slogans reveals how deeply they serve those in power. They suppress dissent, hide cruelty, and make contradictions sound reasonable. They let leaders pretend layoffs are acts of love, sloppy work is innovation, and risk is the same as security. Without reframing, the harshness of reality would be unavoidable. With it, the intolerable can be made to sound like strategy.
Imagine if leaders spoke openly. Imagine a CEO saying, “security slows us down but we need it anyway.” Or, “we value people, but we will lay some off if the market demands it.” Such honesty would be shocking, not because it is offensive, but because it removes the shield of reframing. It would make accountability unavoidable. That is exactly why it doesn’t happen. The entire system relies on keeping the illusion alive.
This isn’t to suggest that shorthand has no purpose. Every culture develops slogans over time. However, in business, reframing has moved beyond simple shorthand. It has become an essential leadership skill. The ability to craft words to achieve your goals is more important than merely building or protecting. For CISOs, that means operating in a world where security is never fully defined as security, and where clear speech can be seen as defiance.
Gaslighting is the right word for this. It is not just deception; it is forcing you to question your own clarity. It tells you that family means expendability, that risk means safety, and that failure is success. It expects you to agree, and if you do not, you are the unreasonable one. The more you hear these reframes, the easier it becomes to doubt yourself. That is the point. The game is not to persuade but to make people complicit in the lie.
And so the cycle continues. Leaders move on before the cracks become visible. Slogans stay in use because they protect those in power. CISOs and other professionals living in the aftermath must choose whether to go along or stand against it. The only true form of resistance is clarity. Calling things what they are is not nitpicking; it is survival. Saying risk management is not security, that layoffs are not family, that sloppiness is not iteration, is to refuse the gaslighting.
The slogans will keep coming. Fail fast. People are assets. Security is an enabler. Each one takes us a step deeper into the strange world where words no longer mean what they used to, and accountability vanishes into smoke. If you’ve ever felt disoriented in those meetings, you’re not imagining it. You’re watching the Twilight Zone, executive edition.
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