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Dear reader,

I think I speak for all of us when I say how consistently surprised I am by our industry’s ability to argue about terminology. We’re so accustomed to marketing things and persuading others that we have this unnatural tendency to do it even when it’s unnecessary–during a friendly conversation, a family get-together, a LinkedIn comment.

We want to brand everything from the words we use to ourselves. It’s exhausting.

This is why I’m not going to spend one minute sitting here wondering whether you have a problem with the term “thought leader” or not because that’s not the point. Call them what you will, but there are people on this planet that are meant to guide our thinking, challenge our perceptions, and shift our convictions. And I’d like to talk about what makes them successful long term.

Why?

At SXSW this year, I came face to face with a familiar foe. I attended a panel discussion at the Fast Company space that was about “scalable content that stands out”, which made sense given my interest in human-generated content in the era of GenAI. One of the panelists was a senior vice president at Canva, which even after listening to this conversation for half an hour, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what she stands for.

I spent the whole time distracted by the fact that this woman was speaking only (and I mean only) for her brand. There was no sense of individuality–dare I say it, humanity–in her words. No sense of ownership, yet full of pride. It’s nothing new, this parroting has been going on for what seems like forever. The difference this time, however, was the energy of the resounding applause–not one of admiration, but one of desperation. The audience wasn’t just infatuated with Canva, they were completely dependent on it for survival.

It was bizarre and quite sad. But for how off-putting it was to me, I sat there watching Canva’s ambassador receive this passionate display of obsession with a smile, and I wondered: Does it bother her at all that they’re not clapping for her, but rather for the brand she represents? Does it matter to her whether the audience actually listened to what she had to say? And, above all, does she truly align with that message?

I walked away not knowing who this woman is or how she thinks, nothing. I understood the goals of the PR team perfectly, but when you listen to “messaging” squeezed into the ambience of a “conversation”, there’s nothing for your thoughtful mind to latch on to. Either you go deep into the emotional haze of fandom and leave yourself star-struck, or you’re simply bored and questioning how you value your time.

I found myself repeating, “This can’t be a thought leader. This is not a thought leader.”

Who?

There are several questions I’m confronted with constantly when it comes to thought leadership, which is a significant part of the editorial marketing I do. The immediate question is usually, “What is it?” But while most people focus on the tangible task first (the thought leadership itself), you know very well that I always start with the human instead. God forbid that we should start with the framework before the mindset 😉 

Anyone can be a thought leader regardless of title, function, age, or network size. And it’s important that you diversify. Your thought leaders must come from across the organization, not just the top or even middle. Authenticity means through and through.

Great thought leaders are defined by their intentions, abilities, and values–by what’s on the inside rather than outside. Which should come as no surprise because relationships are relationships; no matter where you build them, they’re influenced by some universal truths. After all, they share the most important common denominator: humans.

When I’m hiring, a person that’s willing to contribute trumps one with more experience every time. That characteristic–willingness–is one that spills over into everything else a person does. In our specific case here, solid thought leadership asks that people be willing to openly share how it is they do what they do. Not just what or why, but how. Omit that and you’ve omitted your differentiator.

A thought leader is dedicated to you, the reader. Everything created feels like it was made for your benefit and growth. Of course, there are leaders who believe in placing oneself in the process and creating what they themselves want to see in the world. But experience tells me that even that is a path chosen out of a desire to more virtuously create what others need.

Combine this dependability with a natural propensity for honest reflections, and you have yourself a thought leader known for their integrity. It’s hard to admit that your thoughts are not what make you unique, but those who’ve accepted it are then capable of building their brands around who they are rather than what they do (which can alter over time). That kind of constant, coherent representation of values rather than ideas is an approach to personal branding that prompts you to bring what it is you have inside out. To create thought leadership that leads with intention and places your way of being, of acting, of doing at the center.

There are other elements to it, of course, but these are my non-negotiables. These are the ones that I’ve found can really f**k with your process and progress if not fully understood and adopted. My father was right: In a 98% situation, that last 2% can make all the difference. It can decide whether someone is honest or not–a brand to buy from or not. I don’t know anything more valuable to an organization than trust, and the right thought leaders can generate an endless supply of it.

What?

Now, we can go back to thought leadership and what it is–or, more importantly, what it isn’t. I’m a big fan of flipping the question not out of your typical love of contradiction, but because I prefer to get people thinking for themselves rather than tell them exactly what to do. (I’m an educator, not ChatGPT.)

Apart from the more tangible aspects outlined above, there are also a few intangibles worth mentioning. For example, thought leadership is not about popularity. It's about ownership: empowering people to own their narrative amidst the pressure to simply represent that of their current employer. Stating and leaving space for this is a guaranteed way to get more people interested in actually participating in your program.

Narrative = Power

Power in voice. Power in impact. Power in market.

It’s also not about practices. It does, however—before you even begin putting things into physical practice—require a specific mindset. I always say it’s an editorial mindset, that you must think editorial, which involves all of the elements mentioned earlier on: respecting your audience above all else, being incredibly coherent with your messaging, writing from a place of intention, and producing content that the audience can utilize to do better and evolve further.

Last, but not least, it’s also not about conflict. Fighting for something is one thing; fighting against something is another. To build thought leadership as a one-sided battle is a dangerous bet. More often than not, it results in content that merely reports on what’s wrong with the status quo rather than spending that energy (both the creator’s and viewer’s) on delving further into the suggested, improved process. Not to mention its dualistic characteristics leave very little room for healthy debate and conversation.

How?

If you want to bring thought leaders out of the weeds and into more visible ambassadorship, then you need to give them a solid reason to do so. The obvious way (and an essential message to get across) is that it’s beneficial to them as an individual. Regardless of the roles they take on in the future–internally or externally–their solidified personal brand will go with them. And they may not know how important building their personal brand is, so you must offer some training on that.

At the end of the day, it’s way better for them to hitch their personal brand to that of their organization’s, especially if there’s space for them to simultaneously be themselves. The more support you offer them, the better. They’ll participate in the program for personal gain, while your organization reaps the rewards of a more humanized approach. It’s a win-win; a happy relationship that can 100% make employees stay with your company for longer.

If you’re a communications leader (or know one) looking to dive deeper into my process, I’m currently hand-selecting the first 30 invitees for my private online program.

A common irrational fear is that if you promote somebody publicly, and they leave the company, then your brand is at a disadvantage. It’s not true. The relationship ran its course, and both parties can take what they’ve built and learned with them into the future. Many companies only promote executives at the very top of the food chain because they feel they have to for the sake of PR. But it’s not a given to promote the others, even though it’s critical. It’s critical because you don’t depend on a small cohort and because it entices more employees to stick around.

This brings us to the less common approach to activating thought leaders: editorial marketing. Brand narratives are usually architected at the top and then sent to permeate towards the bottom. A select group of people get together with an external agency to articulate what the brand stands for, how it speaks, and how that translates into its offerings. At this point, a huge gap remains between the overarching narrative and the product/service marketing expected en masse.

If you are to tell your desired thought leaders that they’re being asked to contribute to the further distinction of your brand’s propositions, they’ll jump at the chance. You’ll find that many of them have been frustrated for quite a while by the disconnect between what they were thinking or hearing in the market and the high-level messaging delivered at the corporate level. Their input will prove itself to be the key to defensible differentiation.

Stay human,

Flavia Barbat