Philip Goguen
A vast majority of people in the world are not comfortable with handling high pressure. There are many situations when something like this happens, and people who can handle it properly can be of great help in these situations. Today, we want to emphasize professionals who are known as executive protection agents.
In most cases, people refer to them as bodyguards. However, we would like to say that these two terms are not synonyms. Some aspects make them different. What ties them together is the main aim of their actions, to protect their employer, who is usually a wealthy and important person.
These professionals are the main topic of many Hollywood movies. Their work is usually depicted as romantic and interesting. Still, it needs to be said that it doesn’t have to be like that. To remove all the uncertainties, we want to provide you with an exact description of what executive protection agents do.
Let’s take a look at what is known about this position.
What are the Duties?
Now, we would like to discuss some of the duties people in this position have.
1. Transport Security
The first duty we want to talk about is transportation security. We are talking about something that’s probably the activity whose quality points out capable executive protection agents. For instance, the whole route of the travel needs to be carefully mapped. Plus, cargo needs to be protected through it.
To do that properly, the executive protection needs to provide their clients with an experienced driver, who knows how to avoid all the potential dangers. Also, the driver must have a wide array of different skills besides this one. Still, being a quality driver is the most significant one out there.
2. Surveillance
One of the most obvious duties is surveillance. Surveillance is carried out in two main ways, physical and electronic. It involves providing risk assessment, protection, and continuous intelligence. Surveillance is an activity that precedes physical protection, and avoid it when it is not necessary to do it.
Surveillance is, as we’ve already stated, provided solely to wealthy people, politicians, religious leaders, and practically all sorts of people from a higher social status within one society. The employer’s activities are not disrupted by surveillance at all. Only the most competent professionals can pull it off.
3. Advance Operations
Besides these two activities, many others can be considered advanced. These are way more complicated than those we’ve mentioned before. For instance, these professionals can be hired by a large corporation to accompany them on a business trip to a foreign country, which is not a simple task.
Sometimes, that may include collaboration with the local authorities. So, this sort of protection requires quite a lot of different capabilities. So, people who are about to perform them need to have enough skills in a wide array of fields. Interestingly enough, these professionals need an understanding of basic law principles.
How to Become One?
Becoming an executive protection agent is not an easy task. The reason is quite simple, some of the characteristics cannot be trained, people are simply born with them. We are talking about being able to withstand a huge amount of pressure, especially in dangerous situations.
Sure, this can be learned through some training, but this characteristic person is only born with makes the difference between the most capable professionals and those who are average. At the same time, certain aspects can be obtained solely through executive protection training.
Among these skills, you can find handling a firearm, martial arts, and psychology. Why psychology, you ask? Well, an executive protection agent needs to recognize the situations and people’s behavior, to predict all the potential dangers. Not all of them will be equally predictive, it is simply unreasonable to expect that.
Also, it is important to focus on things like journey management, corporate security, perimeter security, fluency in the most widespread languages in the world, and GPS. So, those who think that the only requirement is to be strong and bold enough are making the mistake of believing that.
What to Look for When Hiring These?
In case you require these services, you need to know exactly what you’re looking for.
1. Defensive Skills
Important business people and politicians can always expect some level of dangers and threats coming to them for many different reasons. There’s no way they can predict when some of these problems can pop up. Therefore, executive protection agents can do that for you through their defensive skills.
Defensive skills represent a combination of hand-to-hand combat and proper use of firearms. Not only that, it is essential to know when these measures need to be used and when it is unnecessary to do it. Both of these aspects are equally important when we are talking about defensive skills.
2. Customer Service
While it may not look like that, having proper customer service by those who provide these services. Clients should have an option to discuss all the vital aspects of the procedure. It can happen that clients are not satisfied with some processes. You should take a look at this aspect when you’re about to choose the executive protection agent.
3. Quality Communication Skills
Since tensions can disrupt the way we think, the protection agent should have exceptional communication skills. Just think about it, these are people who are responsible for your well-being. So, you would want to talk to them properly and expect short and correct answers to your questions.
Without having proper communication with a protection agent, chances are that some quite big problems can arise down the road. Since you don’t want this to happen, look only towards people who are both polite and honest, and who can say whatever needs to be said in all the situations.
In Conclusion
As you can see, we are talking about quite an interesting profession that’s both underestimated and misjudged by many. Here, you can take a look at all the relevant information about it. We are sure that they will be of great help when it comes to understanding this one properly.
