On Thought Leadership as a Role…
I’m still thinking about The Ineffable Concept of Thought Leadership™ (or TICOTL; “tuh-cottle”).
Here’s what has to happen for someone to create “thought leadership” (as a noun, I guess?).
Something interesting needs to happen, either a specific…thing, or some observation or realization someone has had from their body of work (I need a noun for this – what is the word we should use to call this?)
That person needs to realize that whatever #1 was, it’s a thing that should be shared
That person needs to have the skill (or engage with people who have the skill) to turn that into a content asset that effectively communicates what happened in #1
The content asset from #3 needs to be effectively promoted and distributed so that other people see it
I talked about #1 last week. You need to do the work to have work to talk about.
I’ll get to #2 below.
AI will help with #3. There are people who couldn’t create content well before than can now, so that’s good. But it’s an obvious point that some people are better at codifying experience than others. Some people can just explain things well and make them interesting (and that’s another important point – can you create something that someone wants to consume?).
#4 is probably out of the person’s hands. It’s really a function of their organization’s marketing skill or their pre-existing networks.
So, back to #2: how do we identify thought leadership opportunities? Is THAT the difference between a good TL program and a not-good one? Are companies and individuals who are “good” at TL really just better at sensing (#2) what situations (#1) should be shared? Is it a gatekeeping thing?
(Consider: there are undoubtedly some people and organizations doing incredible things that they just never talk about…)
Should an organization have a Chief Thought Leadership Officer that just manages the flow of TL coming out of the organization? This person would be responsible for finding (#2) situations (#1), guiding them through the publication process (#3), and making sure they get exposure (#4)?
Does that position exist in the average organization? Who should own this?