Has the time come to find out if you indeed are “thought leader” material, i.e., that expert of all experts to whom your target market turns to… every time? Maybe you’re a thought leader already and don’t know it. Or maybe you do know it, or suspect it, but could use some validation.
To some extent, we are all thought leaders on some level. If you’re an expert on anything at all (engineering, human resources, management, Chinese history, bartending, roofing), you are at least on the launch pad. You see, all thoughtleaders are experts, although not all experts are thoughtleaders. Thoughtleaders are experts who have made a commitment to optimizing their expertise-”to fine-tuning their expert’s edge.
But if you haven’t gotten that far yet, you should at least know that if anyone is lauding you, or paying you, for your skills or knowledge or expertise, you have met the basic entry requirements. A Starbucks barista, for example, who is expert at concocting everything from venti-cinnamon-dolce-lattes to grande-lite-chai-tea-tall-doppio-half-soy-moccachinos doesn’t necessarily know any more than the barista who replaces her on the next shift, so in that sense the two baristas are both experts. But if she wishes to become a barista thoughtleader, distinguishing herself from her shift predecessors and shift successors, not to mention all the many thousands of other baristas out there at all the many Starbucks in the world, she can embark upon a personal thoughtleading strategy to get herself there.
Perhaps understanding the principal characteristics of thoughtleaders would help here. Often the only thing holding a would-be thoughtleader back is an array of misconceptions about what a thoughtleader is and is not. Such misconceptions feed into the thoughtleader wannabe’s low self-image, amounting to what I call “thoughtleader jitters.”
For example, it’s often assumed that a thoughtleader is someone whose ideas are totally original. Well, yes and no. While a thoughtleader’s mind should be open to new insights and lessons learned, these insights and lessons may be new to the thoughtleading individual but not new to the world in the strictest sense of the word. They may, however, be new to many of the people who read this thoughtleader’s article or book.
So in case your own misconceptions have created thoughtleader jitters that have been holding you back, here’s a “Thoughtleading Inventory” composed of seven questions and commentaries designed to help you gauge your personal and professional thoughtleading potential. Perhaps this inventory can put your jitters to rest and get you off your thoughtleader launch pad:
1. Are You an Entrepreneurial Personality?
Thoughtleading is all about trying something new, and diving deep into the subject of thoughtleading suggests a learning personality, a prime characteristic of entrepreneurialism. And although the term entrepreneurs is typically associated with people who own and run their own businesses, you can also be an entrepreneur within the structure of a firm that you do not own, but that instead employs you.
The key to unleashing your entrepreneurial side in your quest to become a thoughtleader, as even the corporate entrepreneurial personality displays, is for you is to eliminate whatever personal “blocks” might be getting in the way of allowing you to think deeply, think creatively, trust and have faith, develop interesting ideas, and firmly commit to a breakthrough result. So declare your own hour or two of free time every day so that you too can pursue what you choose. Use the time to develop your thoughtleading self. Stop telling yourself that you don’t have the time.
2. Do You Enjoy Finding Creative Solutions to Problems?
When you work with your clients, do you ever run up against a particularly vexing problem? Do you find yourself digging deeper for a solution or developing a new process for resolving a problem? Do you sometimes come up with a completely unexpected happy result?
If so, creativity is in your blood. Creativity is a prime ingredient in thoughtleading. By sharing individualized expressions of concepts that have been thought up and written about before, you can rightfully claim ownership of “creative” solutions. That puts you squarely in a thoughtleading frame of mind.
3. Are You Interested in Writing and Publishing an Article or a Book?
The question here is not whether you have written and published anything or whether you would be willing to do so, but rather whether you have any interest in doing so. Because to achieve their expert’s edge, genuine thoughtleaders must do this, and do it on a regular basis.
To attain this characteristic, it helps enormously if you actually perceive personal benefits from writing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you must find the writing process enjoyable, just that you must see value in the doing of it.
4. Do You Have Any Interest in Speaking to Groups about Your Ideas?
Because again, as a genuine thoughtleader, you must do this. What thoughtleader jitters get in the way this time? The biggest by far is the abject fear of public speaking itself. Though fear of public speaking might seem like a valid reason for not getting up and doing it, it is not. By being brave and pushing yourself out to speak in public again and again and again, you will make your fear go away. You will then get better as a speaker and begin to reap the same kinds of rewards as you will with your writing.
5. Are You Passionate about Your Specialty?
This one’s pretty important. Why would you go through all the bother, trouble, sweat equity, and so on if you don’t really care about what you’re doing and advocating? Without passion, you’re not likely to dig deeper to keep learning about your thoughtleading specialty. You’re also not likely to try hard to develop original new ideas because it will all feel like just so very much work. So make sure you truly care about your area of expertise.
6. Are You Willing to Take Risks?
As an entrepreneurial personality, you probably have this one covered. The very essence of entrepreneurialism is risk taking, so undoubtedly you engage in it frequently. Since you can never be sure how what you have to say will be received, risk taking is an obvious prerequisite for thoughtleading. Although you’ll certainly develop followers who will agree with everything you have to say, others will object, argue, disapprove, and work to prove you are wrong. Risk taking, then, is the name of the game.
7. Do You Enjoy Musing about the Future?
Thoughtleaders are valuable to society and to their own businesses because they muse about the future. The non-thoughtleader 99 percent of the population goes bustling about every day keeping day-to-day things humming. So the other 1 percent has to step back once in a while and consider where all of this is going, or how it could be done differently, hopefully better, or maybe even not at all.
The thoughtleader then lays out a possible scenario, tosses it on the table, and invites the world to take a good look. That’s where the “leading” in thoughtleading comes in-”the trail blazing, the breaking of new ground. Sometimes this characteristic results in a whole new way of doing things. Other times such musing falls flat. But the musing itself is essential, and by definition a sublime act, so settle back and enjoy it.
Because if a thoughtleader like you isn’t going to do it, who will?
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Ken Lizotte CMC is Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc. in Concord, which enables professional service firms to position themselves as “thoughtleaders.” This article is excerpted from his new book The Expert’s Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time (McGraw Hill). He can be reached by visiting www.thoughtleading.com
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