One of my latest pet-peeves is how often I see the title “thought-leader” on various platforms; though, this is followed closely by organizations that come to the marketing department and demand “you need to position us as a thought-leader.”
To fully explain my frustration, we need to first understand that “thought-leader” isn’t a title, it’s a verb. Being a “thought-leader” requires action. True thought leaders go through a rigorous process to create their positions versus just randomly tossing out an opinion and calling it “truth” (or even worse….”their truth” which somehow grants them immunity from differing opinions).
Thought-leaders rarely call themselves that, it’s something others call them. In fact, chances are if you are calling yourself a thought-leader…you aren’t one.
The reason I write so often and went so far as to build a website to capture my writings is because thought-leadership is a never-ending process of evaluation. Thought-leadership is more than regurgitating a quick quote you found on Linked In. It’s more than putting it in your title and it’s more than having it on your bio.
Thought leadership requires the studying and examination of data, opinions and trends and then truly reflecting upon them. It requires listening to statements that often go in opposition to what you believe and giving that differing opinion a chance. Thought-leadership isn’t about inflexibility and steadfastness, it’s about challenging your current ideology and course-correcting if need be.
Writing is one of the purest forms of this kind of self-reflection. It forces you to examine your closely held opinions and to logically step through positions.
Step 1 of becoming a thought leader? Thinking. Not stating…not quoting and not claiming but thinking.
We have, as a society, devalued the process of thinking in favor of simply “doing.” KPIs and outcomes are held in higher regards than planning and designing. In my industry (technology services), the failure rate for projects is around 30-35% (depending on the source). Many of the reasons given for the failure rate points back to skipping “planning and design…” or the “thinking” phase.
We’re so hyper-focused on productivity that we undervalue thinking. Think of it this way…we’re more focused on getting more and more horsepower out of the engine but have given little (if any) thought to our tires. When we hit the accelerator, we’re generating more horsepower, yes…but we’re not going anywhere any faster; our tires are just spinning faster. But hey, my horsepower is up so, KPI…check! My tires are smoking a whole bunch, so, that must mean I’m more productive! Ridiculous, of course…but it’s how so many “leaders” view productivity today.
The same is true for thought-leadership. We’re looking at the activity as a KPI to be achieved or a marketing output that will boost sales and customer-sat scores….and while it (thought-leadership) certainly can do those things, the ultimate goal of pursuing ‘thought-leadership’ is to make you better. To push you to continually learn, evaluate and re-invent your skills to keep up with the ever changing tides.
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