Inclusive Thought Leadership

Who are the thought leaders in your organization? Assuming you know that term, I'm asking you to think about who delivers thought leadership in your organization. I do a lot of speaking and writing on this topic, and the common answers are the founder, the leader, the C-suite. It's the executives, you know, the people at the top.?

I think that's great, because for many years, I've been encouraging people to be the face of their business, and do it in a thought leading way. So that's great. But if you're not thinking of anyone else, if you're only thinking of those folks, then you might be missing a trick. My passion is inclusive thought leadership, and what I call inclusive, thoughtful leadership. And I'm going to share with you what I've learned through 20 years of working with real thought leaders and seeing our world evolve into one that is very digital.

Firstly, what is thought leadership? There are official definitions, which go something like this: “having the courage to share your ideas and be recognized by your peers and mentors”. The first time I read that, I just felt there was something missing. Turns out what’s missing is the market or the audience, this receiver of the message. So I've spent the past 14 years encouraging people to share their best ideas so they can be recognized by the market.

Thought leadership is about ideas. You may know this already. Think about what you consider to be thought leadership. It's not just ideas. It’s exciting, it’s bold, it’s original, maybe disruptive. Maybe it’s groundbreaking. It gets your attention, it turns heads. And that is the purpose of it. Because in this digital world, there is so much content. There are so many articles and blogs, and podcasts and videos. And by the way, I’m grateful that you're spending your precious time reading this, because there are millions and millions of other things that you could be consuming, watching, listening to or reading. The point is, you recognise thought leadership in its purest form. You know what it is. But it's very hard to pin it down. There are no real metrics. Well, I actually created some in my book 24 Carat Bold, but really, I'm here to focus our minds on thought leadership and the potential in this digital world of ours.?

I have noticed people are taking advantage of digital platforms. You've noticed this too. I mentioned blogs, podcasts videos, either live streamed or recorded, speaking to people in a virtual way You're on Zoom and Teams and other platforms. And that's great. But when people get busy, what do they do? They stop doing all of that stuff. And they focus on their core work. Now, if this is an executive, the founder or leader of the department or the company, they can't afford to be recording videos all the time, writing and sharing, and speaking at events, even if they're virtual. The organization needs them to be doing the strategic work.?

So this is where we should take a look at the individuals who could be thought leaders. Let's call them potential thought leaders. I find this is very exciting. This is where the inclusion aspect comes in. Because wouldn't it be great if you had lots of thought leaders in your organization? It does come with its challenges, which I'll cover later. But imagine a scenario where you had lots of people, many good people in your organization out there writing and speaking and sharing those bold, exciting, maybe disruptive ideas? Wow. Wouldn't that be something? And it creates an overall feeling in the market. Remember, it’s the market that counts. There would be a feeling in the market, that your organization is a thought leading organization.?

I always find it funny when people say an organization is a thought leader. In one of my books, I mention Apple could be considered a thought leader. But if we look at that, at the words there, the company itself doesn't have thoughts. So therefore, a company or any organization can't really be a thought leader. You can have a thought leading organization when you have people out there who are contributing thought leadership. And that's what we're aiming for.?

I've tried so many times to get senior people to involve others in the organization. And I've found that it needs a strategy. It needs a strategic approach, but the benefits are understood. People nod along with me. And they say yes, we would love that. And we can see how the individuals will feel fulfilled, they will feel like they're contributing something and being valued. This is real. I do a lot of surveys. I get the sense that if individuals feel valued, they stay in the organization. If they don't feel valued, well, they probably won't stay. So this is a little secret weapon, if you will, to encourage people to bring their thought leadership into the world, benefiting themselves as well as the organization.?

Let's talk about thoughtful leadership before I move on to the benefits to the organization. Around 2014, I noticed that people were starting to talk about thought leadership, and the definition was getting a bit hazy. And oftentimes, people use phrases or overuse them, or even abuse them. When I would ask somebody, what are you talking about, this thought leadership? They couldn't really answer the question. The reason for that, I believe, is because a lot of content has been churned out, pumped out sometimes by marketing departments or agencies. I don't want to point fingers. It's done by individuals as well. Lots of content is called thought leadership when it’s not really very special or original. People forget that essential component of the market deciding whether content is thought leading or not.?

So I began to think about how to raise the bar, how to change the conversation, change the narrative, change the definition. Well, I'm not likely to change the definition of a globally understood concept all by myself. So I simply created a new term: Thoughtful Leadership. And here's what it is in my opinion. It is “Thought Leadership 2.0”. It is the next level of thought leadership, it's thought leadership with more thought, and better quality thought put into it. You're ahead of so many people if you understand that concept.?

Let’s talk about the organization. You may run a very small company, or a charity or another type of organization. It may be a medium sized business, or even a big organization,?

I don't think the size of the organization matters. When I left corporate, I had a team of about 25 people. And running my own companies, I think the maximum I've ever had in the team has been about 15. Yet we've still done a lot of this stuff I'm talking about, I hope you're excited, because the potential for the organization is so amazing. You can create a lot of buzz, you can get a lot of coverage in the media, both traditional and social media, you can get people talking, your ideas can go viral.?

This is a concept that has always been around. But it's now more important than ever to get noticed, get heard for the right reasons. And to stand out, again, for the right reasons. So the thought leadership that goes out there, and the response that comes back lifts the organization and the brand. I'm sure you've seen this happen. Even if you're relying only on the executives to do this job, you can still create some magic, but you can create a lot more when you include others.?

I've already spoken about retention. I can't promise that no one will ever leave your team. But here’s what I have seen, and as I said, I've done surveys, including employee satisfaction surveys. It's been proven that where people are given a chance to express themselves and their ideas in a cohesive, strategic and approved way, they feel great and they are more loyal and less likely to leave. Imagine someone has an article with their name on it an industry publication, or they are allowed to be a guest on someone else's podcast. We’re talking about the individual team member, not the senior executive, you know. It really does go a long way towards helping people feel valued, like they're contributing, and expressing themselves.?

How do you go about this? There are many ways to do it. I've collated my favourite techniques and strategies for you, so that you can play around with some of them, or you may come up with some I didn't even think of.?

Let's start. The first thing that you want to do is make sure that it is a strategic initiative and is communicated as such. Once you learn about thought leadership and thoughtful leadership frameworks, you can implement one that you have approved. Not only approved, but that you really see going out into the market and creating that buzz. And you involve your people as much as you can.?

If you have a larger organization, you're probably going to need to involve the line managers. They know their team members, probably better than the senior management, definitely better than the execs. So involve them and make sure they're on board, and help them understand how to roll it out. That's key.?

One of the problems I alluded to before, is when things get challenging and people get busy in a tough time. During the pandemic, for example, many people stripped away what they thought was ‘nice to have’ and creating thoughtful content was one of those things for some organizations and some individuals. They were in a panic mode, fearing the worst and they thought “We better batten down the hatches and go back to basics.” Do you really want to go back to basics when you've created so much content, valuable content, ideas and created that buzz? I think you don't.?

So the strategy needs to be sustainable. And one of the tricks is to have more people involved, so you get to share the work, or the fun. You get to share the workload or the fun load. You can distribute that across a much larger group of people, all of whom are in sync and aligned with the brand messaging. Making it strategic and communicating it is the first step. Then comes action. As we know, many strategies sound great on paper, but they don't necessarily play out the way they could. In the case of a thoughtful leadership strategy, helping people to actually execute on it is essential.?

One of the best things my clients do is to add thought leadership, or what we’re calling thoughtful leadership, to people’s job descriptions. They add some deliverables, some writing and speaking goals, to people's individual plans, their personal development plans. This means that it's not a nice to have, it is essential, it's part of their job.?

How great is that? It needs to be woven in, it needs to be part of the culture. If there is a panic, if a customer is in crisis, you need to focus on that customer. But then as quickly as possible, get back to the plan. Make sure that it's not slipping. Sometimes we do trainings, and we have the best intentions, and yet they slip. So this needs to be part of your culture.?

If you're excited about this, if you're good at implementing other culture changes and improvements, then you will be very good at this. It really is about the intention, keeping that strong, and thinking about the benefits we've been talking about: to the individual, to the team and to the entire organization. And even to society, if you want to think big. Because this is valuable content. True thoughtful leadership has had more thought invested into it, so it probably answers a lot of questions that people in your tribe are thinking about.?

You could even tie thought leadership objectives to compensation. One of the things that progressive and enlightened organizations are doing is rewarding writing and speaking, things like producing articles, going to events, representing the company delivering podcast interviews and videos... Not only putting them in the personal development plan, but also compensating people for that. I’ve got lots of methodologies here at The Thoughtful Leader to help each person have an individual, thoughtful leadership plan, which includes mapping out their individual content and ideas.?

My clients who are doing this properly take a holistic approach. They trust that it's all going into the pot, and it's all leading to the brand elevation that I was talking about. Maybe you'll increase somebody's salary or embed this into their compensation package.?

Another thing that you could do is make it fun. Because everybody likes to have fun. How could you implement gamification into this? Could you create different creative ways of recognizing, rewarding and celebrating the thoughtful leadership output of these key individuals, these essential people in your organization? Of course you could.?

A note of caution though. An organization that I've been watching recently has a leaderboard. So the people who produce the most articles, those who do more, go to the top. That's not always appropriate, and it can even be demotivating. We have to respect the fact that some people really may not even want to be visible or vocal. Equally, they don't want to see their name at the bottom of a leaderboard. Would you? There are ways to handle this, there are other games. I'm not a games creator, but there's probably somebody in your team who could come up with something. Again, include people and figure out a way to make this even more fun, as well as productive and hopefully commercially successful.?

There are so many things that you could do. People can share internally, if they're not confident sharing externally. This is a very interesting concept. When I first started talking about thought leadership back in 2008, somebody in one of the audiences that I was talking to put their hand up and asked, “What about internal communications and internal thought leadership?”. And I had never thought about it. Now I do think about it, and I see the value. Especially in this digital world, where people are in different places, you can feel like you're having a bigger impact when you talk to somebody in another town, city or country. You've never met them. But in a way, it feels like you are expanding your influence. I don't know if this makes any sense to you. But a lot of things have changed. And it's a great thing to be able to expand your influence, if you want to.?

Make sure you honor diversity. Honor the fact that some people may not even want to play this game. This has been hard for me to take on board. Because I always think everybody wants to be an influencer, everybody wants their ideas to be heard, and everybody wants to share. Not true. Simply not true.?

Part of this strategy is figuring out who would love to do this. Who, right now, in your team or organization, would be biting your hand off to do this stuff? Can you think of one or two or more people who have really great ideas but so far, they haven't been allowed or encouraged to share them widely or publicly to represent the brand? There's so much potential, so much potential, that's probably untapped.?

Most organizations don't even understand the bare minimum about thought leadership, much less thoughtful leadership, much less inclusive, thoughtful leadership in our digital world. So just imagine the next time someone asks you who are the thought leaders in your organization, you actually have such a long list that you can't even name them all. And that, in my opinion, would be a win for them, for you, for your brand, and for the world.?

I'd be very happy to have a chat with you any time about your own thoughtful leadership, about creating a culture of thoughtful leadership in your organization, and about developing more thoughtful leaders, so that everybody wins. That's what gets me excited. If it gets you excited. I look forward to talking to you very soon.?