How to be a thought leader

Is there a term more devalued by our industry than “thought leadership”?
It’s meant to indicate big-brained, problem-solving, sector-innovating, old idea-challenging, world-beating, conversation-starting insight. It’s meant to indicate that this person really knows their beans and they’re worth listening to if you want to learn, grow and succeed.
Whether it’s a LinkedIn post or an entire book, a piece of thought leadership content should leave your reader’s head spinning, their mind blown, their thinking broadened.
Yet most “thought leadership” is recycled crap that provides neither original thought nor inspiring leadership.
(In this rant I’m going to use scare quotes when I’m talking about people who are cosplaying as “thought leaders”, rather than being fair dinkum thought leaders.)

Why most “thought leadership” content is crap

Why is so much “thought leadership” content total crap?
In my experience, it’s effort.
All too often “thought leaders” put next to no effort into the ideas they’re sharing.
“Thought” means nothing more than “I’ve read a few articles about this subject lately so this is an emerging trend I must jump on”.
“Leadership” means nothing more than forwarding those articles to someone else so they can write a new article regurgitating those ideas.
I know this is what happens because I’ve been on the receiving end of briefs like that many times over the years. To the point where Sarah and I no longer accept that kind of work.
Don’t get me wrong, we love helping true leaders and innovators create their thought leadership content—we’ll interview them, get a clear understanding of their views, and help them write it or edit their words. But we won’t write other people’s “thought leadership” from Ground Zero and we certainly won’t write it based on third-party opinions the “thought leader” found on Google.

Why real thought leadership is important

Our wonderful friends at Orbit Media and Mantis Research recently surveyed content marketers about thought leadership. You can get the full report here. Here’s what they found:
• The best thought leaders are experts in their field (and having that expertise is critical)
• Having a strong point of view is essential but opinions don’t have to be controversial or unpopular
• Almost a third of respondents said their thought leadership program was “successful”, another quarter said it was “very successful”
• “Success” means website traffic, leads, media mentions, email subscribers, customer retention, and invitations to speak
• 66% said thought leadership was a content marketing priority and 47% were personally striving to be a thought leader.
Clearly, thought leadership drives results. But here’s the thing: not everyone (not even 47% of everyone) can be a thought leader.
There’s a difference between wanting to be seen as a thought leader and actually being a thought leader.
If you want to be a thought leader, you have to commit! Writing a thought leadership article because your strategy says you need to pump one out every month is not real thought leadership.

How to get thought leadership right

Here’s what Sarah and I have learned over many years creating content for, working with, listening to, and following thought leaders.
• Have something original to say. If you’re regurgitating someone else’s opinions, you are, by definition, following rather than leading.
• Be open, authentic and generous with your insights. Your audience should be thinking “this is gold dust; I can’t believe they’re sharing this with me”.
• Don’t spam your audience. If you don’t have anything new to say, publish less often. Go for impact.
• If you’re determined to publish to a schedule, then do a LOT of thinking between publications and make sure you have something big to say. You have to earn your readers’ time.
• Commentary or opinion in itself is not enough. Bring the weight of your experience to bear on the topic. If you think something is a chimera or a red herring, explain why and offer an alternative.
• Commission high-quality original research. It gives you insights no-one else has and gives you real authority. Plus, you can mine it for ideas for a whole year.
• Be honest and transparent, always. You can’t fudge it. You can’t be weak willed. Fence sitting is, by definition, not thought leadership. It’s just bloviating.
• Finally, focus on quality. Quality of ideas, quality of writing. That’s how you’ll have impact. If that means getting a professional writer to help you craft your ideas into a more coherent article than you could manage yourself, that’s fine—as long as the thoughts shared and the leadership shown are all yours! And whether you write it yourself or with a copywriter’s help, get it professionally edited and proofread to ensure it’s up to the standard your readers expect from a true thought leader.