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  • I’m a Thought Leader, Too! Do You Believe Me?

    Posted on May 1st, 2009 by Spike and currently 3 commenting.

    Don’t get me wrong, being considered a thought leader is a great thing (not that I’m one, I’m just speaking in general here). You can write bestselling books, pen articles, or have a blog that boasts thousands of readers and people will listen to you because they consider you a thought leader in your field. Someone who is considered to be ahead of the curve. Someone who evangelizes from the rooftops and says all the things that just seem to make sense.

    But especially in this day and age, where everyone has a stage and can claim to be an expert in just about anything, I’m here to say that thought leadership isn’t enough. It’s your actions. It’s what you do. Which is, what, thought do-ership? Thought action? Action leadership? I don’t know what to call it, but my point is that our actions STILL speak louder than our words.

    If you’re a thought leader that bases those thoughts on what you have put into action with your own, hands-on, blood, sweat and tears work, then you have my full attention. If you’re a thought leader who pontificates and has no actions or hands-on, in-the-field work to back up those thoughts, why should I listen?

    The value that I see in the philosophers is that they evoke conversation and heated debates. There’s a place for those things, but the philosophers were usually the guys that sat around in white robes in the safety of the kingdom all day long. I’d rather gather around the campfire and listen to the warriors. Those that speak from experience. Those that have been in the thick of it, because they really know what it’s like out there. They breathe the same air as their companions. They have stood shoulder-to-shoulder and have had to choose between right and wrong in a heartbeat. They live what they believe and their actions show it. Let me say that again: they live it.

    Here’s to living it in the new age of thought leadership.

    *this post was inspired by this post.

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  • http://www.lisahickey.com Lisa Hickey

    Thanks Spike, glad I discovered your blog, and thanks for provoking discussion.

    I recently was asked to create a proposal for a community website of thought leaders. And in the spirit of “don’t ask me what the website looks like, ask me what a thought leader looks like” I dug up the following definition:

    “A buzzword used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights.”

    This led me to make the following admission to my client: “I discovered, much to my chagrin, that thought leadership is not just about thinking.”

    Yes, I too would rather “gather around the campfire and listen to the warriors. Those that speak from experience.” But there’s still a place for thought leadership in its purest form – when it’s used to describe people who think about the future in a way that helps create it.