Chapter 6
Celebrity
How to Be the Authority and Expert
Thought Leadership
A relatively recent construct, “thought leadership” has entered the vernacular to denote expertise and status as a conveyor of intellectual capital. It’s as good a term as any, but the concept is fungible—it may be expressed differently by the time you read this.
No matter, the concept is sound: If you want to achieve the equivalent of “super status,”1 then you can merely be terrific at implementing the tried and true, but you have to create the true, having tried it first yourself.
In a study I was part of several years ago for the National Speakers Association, we found that true buyers of speaking services (not meeting planners or bureaus) primarily sought and were attracted to . . . expertise. If you look at the thought leaders extant today (e.g., Marshall Goldsmith in coaching, Jeff Gitomer in sales, Walt Mossberg in consumer technology, me in solo consulting), you’ll find some commonalities.
Thought leaders tend to:
- Create intellectual capital that they translate into intellectual property that can be purchased and accessed and implemented by others. The process of turning concepts and intangible ideas into pragmatic and tangible approaches is known as “instantiation.” In one strategy project, the CEO wanted to know beforehand, “Will you bring your own intellectual capital? We don’t need merely a facilitator; we need an active leader for the process.”
- Be unafraid of making their approaches public. ...
