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Ready to Be a Thought Leader?: How to Increase Your Influence, Impact, and Success

Ready to Be a Thought Leader?: How to Increase Your Influence, Impact, and Success

by Guy Kawasaki, Denise Brosseau
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Release Date: January 2014
ISBN: 9781118795118
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Book Description

The how-to guide to becoming a go-to expert

Within their fields, thought leaders are sources of inspiration and innovation. They have the gift of harnessing their expertise and their networks to make their innovative thoughts real and replicable, sparking sustainable change and even creating movements around their ideas. In Ready to Be a Thought Leader?, renowned executive talent agent Denise Brosseau shows readers how to develop and use that gift as she maps the path from successful executive, professional, or civic leader to respected thought leader.

With the author's proven seven-step process—and starting from wherever they are in their careers—readers can set a course for maximum impact in their field. These guidelines, along with stories, tips, and success secrets from those who have successfully made the transition to high-profile thought leader, allow readers to create a long-term plan and start putting it into action today, even if they only have 15 minutes to spare.

  • Offers a step-by-step process for becoming a recognized thought leader in your field

  • Includes real-world examples from such high-profile thought leaders as Robin Chase, founder and former CEO of Zipcar; Chip Conley, author of PEAK and former CEO of JDV Hospitality; and more

  • Written by Denise Brosseau, founder of Thought Leadership Lab, an executive talent agency that helps executives become thought leaders, who has worked with start-up CEOs and leaders from such firms as Apple, Genentech, Symantec, Morgan Stanley, Medtronic, KPMG, DLA Piper, and more

Ready to Be a Thought Leader? offers essential reading for anyone ready to expand their influence, increase their professional success, have an impact far beyond a single organization and industry, and ultimately leave a legacy that matters.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. More praise for Ready to Be a Thought Leader?
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Foreword
  7. Introduction: What Do You Want to be Known For?
    1. What Is a Thought Leader?
    2. Why Become a Thought Leader?
    3. Thought Leaders Needed
    4. My Journey to Thought Leadership
    5. Seven Steps to Thought Leadership
    6. How to Use This Book
    7. The Time Is Now
    8. Notes
  8. Getting Started: From Leader to Thought Leader
    1. How Am I Doing So Far?
    2. What Makes a Successful Thought Leader?
    3. Getting Started: A Quick Review
  9. CHAPTER 1: Find Your Driving Passion
    1. Find Your Niche
    2. Envision Your What If? Future
    3. Align With (or Buck) Trends
    4. Find Your Driving Passion: A Quick Review
    5. Notes
  10. CHAPTER 2: Build Your Ripples of Influence
    1. Start Your First Ripples
    2. Case Study: Van Ton-Quinlivan
    3. Case Study: Steve Craft
    4. Find Your Stakeholders
    5. It's About Them
    6. Don't Give Up Too Easily
    7. Build Your Ripples of Influence: A Quick Review
    8. Notes
  11. CHAPTER 3: Activate Your Advocates
    1. Case Study: Mary Hughes and the 2012 Project
    2. Identify Potential Supporters
    3. Consider What's in It for Them
    4. Discover What Might Hold Them Back
    5. Prepare to SPAR
    6. What to Do When It's Time to Engage
    7. Activate Your Advocates: A Quick Review
    8. Notes
  12. CHAPTER 4: Put Your “I” on the Line
    1. “If Not Me, Then Who?”
    2. Find Your Imperative
    3. Case Study: Zoe Dunning
    4. Overcome Your Fears
    5. Foster Your Resilience
    6. Find (Lots of) Help
    7. Let Go of Your “Yeah, But”
    8. Put Your “I” on the Line: A Quick Review
    9. Notes
  13. CHAPTER 5: Codify Your Lessons Learned
    1. Understand How Change Happens
    2. Overcome the “Not Me” Attitude
    3. Capture What You Know
    4. Create Your Intellectual Property
    5. Codify Your Lessons Learned: A Quick Review
    6. Notes
  14. CHAPTER 6: Put Yourself on S.H.O.U.T.
    1. Case Study: Avinash Kaushik, Google
    2. SELECT YOUR AUDIENCE AND VENUE
    3. HONE YOUR MESSAGE
    4. OVERCOME RESISTANCE
    5. UNDERSTAND POTENTIAL PITFALLS
    6. TRANSFORM INDIVIDUALS INTO A COMMUNITY
    7. Start with the Basics
    8. Put Yourself on S.H.O.U.T.: A Quick Review
    9. Notes
  15. CHAPTER 7: Incite (R)Evolution
    1. Audit Your Impact
    2. Accelerate Your Influence
    3. Amplify Your Voice
    4. Take Care of Yourself
    5. Incite (R)Evolution: A Quick Review
    6. Notes
  16. Conclusion
    1. Notes
  17. Acknowledgments
  18. About the Author
  19. More from Wiley
  20. Index