Four Pillars of Thought Leadership

"Thought leadership" is a term with a lot of baggage. People describe themselves as a thought leader. Companies insist they're producing thought leadership content.

But if you break it down to a simple definition, thought leadership is: have thoughts, be a leader.

Companies get it wrong when they assume leader = fancy title.

Individuals get it wrong when they focus only on having thoughts, without building a following.

To be a thought leader, you need four elements to work together:

1. Credibility
2. Profile
3. Prolific
4. Depth of ideas

But, how do you start? How do you know if you're making progress? How do you capture your ideas and personality to build a following? Read on for details on creating a baseline profile and tracking progress in each element.

Framing the Framework

Before we dive into the details, let's set some context. Thought leadership is NOT just about being famous. That's fame. The 4-pillar framework outlined below includes the following context:

1. Confined to knowledge workers: We’re not defining celebrities, entertainers, musicians, sports stars, or other “famous” people.
2. You need to have a thought: You need to be making improvements, executing in novel ways, or otherwise iterating and introducing something new or original.
3. Being good at your job does not make you a thought leader: The pillars have little to do with actual job performance. Plenty of people are smart, capable, and produce great results for their career/team/company. This is specifically about people who have potential to be thought leaders and credible external spokespeople.

Creating a Baseline Across the Four Pillars of Thought Leadership

The four pillars work together in tandem, and the goal is to move up in each pillar. I recommend "scoring" yourself using red (beginner/poor), yellow (making progress but needs improvement), and green (successful).

This is what a lot of founders or C-suite execs look like. They have the big, fancy title. And in most cases, their title lends them some credibility, but it’s limited to people who know them, or to a small sub-set of their field. But, since they're busy people, they haven't taken time to codify their ideas in a way that other people can learn and implement. They rarely write articles, speak at conferences, or engage on social media.

This profile is the epitome of the, "busy stakeholder".

In contrast, this is what a lot of smart, capable practitioners look like. They’re aces?at solving problems at a tactical level, and they might even be coming up with new strategies to iterate on the traditional approach. They’re often writing or speaking about it with other practitioners.

But since they don’t have a high profile, it’s hard for them to be credible outside their very small circle. They’re sharing a lot, but no one is listening.?

I don't think you need to make it to the top of every pillar to be a thought leader or an effective spokesperson. You can have a lot of influence in your field and adjacent fields at these levels and moving from tactics into strategies.

Proof-points and Tactics for Each Thought Leadership Pillar

So, how do you know when you’ve moved from one level to the next within each pillar? And how do you keep making progress in each pillar?

Credibility is about whether people perceive you as an authority in your subject. As you think about the credibility pillar, you have to think about how the AUDIENCE views you:

Do people believe what you say? Do people think you're knowledgeable? Do people trust you?

Credibility can be positional, such as a title, a practitioner with repeatable results or extensive experience in the field, or through formal credentials like education and licenses. You can accelerate growth in the credibility pillar by when pairing with a strong brand or another prominent thought leader in your field.

Profile is about how many people know you, and the nature of your connections. You've heard people joke that only their mom or their spouse sees their content? They're signaling that they know they're not well-known and they don't get attention from high-reach outlets. They don't have a profile.

One of the less obvious changes as you move up in this pillar is the nature of your network. For people who are just starting out on building a profile, they personally know most of the connections, either through past workplaces, attending college together, or meeting at an event.

But as you move up, you start to see the opposite: connections know you, but you don't know them. Prestigious outlets feature you vs. you sharing links to those outlets. Conferences invite you to speak vs. you pitching to speak.

Being prolific is about how often you’re sharing your knowledge, and the prestige of the outlets where you speak or publish. This is closely tied with having a strong profile, because as your profile improves, so do your opportunities to share with bigger audiences.

Prolific people write blogs, speak at conferences, create videos, join podcast, share on social media, and engage with their audience. They create and share A LOT of content.

Sometimes people think being prolific means creating net-new content all day, every day, on every channel. Instead, re-purposing and re-framing and re-organizing are the keys to success. Yes, you need to be sharing different types of content in different places regularly to build your credibility and profile, and help people learn from your depth of ideas. But re-mixing existing content saves time and allows you to share your message with new and different audiences.

Depth of ideas is about codifying your insights into processes and frameworks that teach others how to replicate your success. Remember, it's not just about being good at your job, it's about codifying your expertise so that OTHER PEOPLE can learn, implement, and see success.

Share your ideas in a way that allows others to engage, build on, and apply them in their own context.

Thought leaders add to, not just change or disagree with, the existing conversation, best practices, and solutions.

You can be smart and impactful without being a thought leader. But to be a thought leader, you need to educate and empower others to achieve smarts and impact.

Quick Tips to Get Started with Thought Leadership

So you wanna be (or build) a thought leader? Here's a few tips to get started:

1. Use the baseline profile exercise to determine where you need to focus. If you're red in all areas, I suggest starting with the depth of ideas pillar. Codifying your expertise gives you content to start sharing, which contributes to being prolific and increasing your credibility.
2. Just. Publish. Seriously! Perfect is the enemy of done, so start sharing here on LinkedIn. I recommend two prompts: a question you answered today, and a question you asked today. Write 'em up to share what you explained to someone and what you learned. Dive into the comments on the post, and engage in comments on other people's posts.
3. Create the foundation assets for pitching. Most outlets require a short bio (usually <100 words, sometimes as few as <50 words) and an abstract (usually fewer than 300 words, sometimes <150 words). Take a nice headshot with decent lighting and an uncluttered background. It will make it MUCH easier to submit for a guest blog or conference slot when you have these ready to go.

I'll close with this excellent quote from Dorie Clark, an author and professor at the Duke Fuqua School of Business, she notes:

"You have something unique to offer by dint of who you are. Even if something in theory has been done before, it hasn’t been done by you in the way that you can do it. It’s time to step forward and to recognize that you can make a contribution."?

Follow me on LinkedIn for more insights about marketing strategy, content strategy, and thought leadership.

Parts of this article were adapted from previous LinkedIn posts and my article on thought leadership for MarketingProfs. You can also hear my free, un-gated INBOUND podcast episode on this topic.