How Do I Become a Thought Leader? 5 Key Steps to Elevate Your Profile in Your Industry
Are you a leader or a follower? A leader, right? We thought so.
At ThoughtLede, we believe adamantly in the power of positioning as a thought leader for businesses and individuals alike (and if you’re wondering “What is a thought leader?” we’ve got answers for you there as well). Those who can add valuable insights to the industry conversation are likely to develop an audience, and that audience is likely to convert into paying customers. But if you’ve found your way to this page, then you already know that, and you’re here to ask one question.
How do I become a thought leader?
It’s a feat easier said than done, and unfortunately, you can’t speak your status as a thought leader into existence. Chances are you’ll end up projectile-word-vomiting business clichés into the LinkedIn void, rather than cultivating true credibility with the audience that matters. However, with the right roadmap and the commensurate effort, it’s an achievable and worthwhile objective. To help in your quest, we’ve developed 5 simple steps to accelerate your progress. If you’re wondering how to become a thought leader, look no further to start your journey.
Acquire a wealth of knowledge or expertise.
Look, we said becoming a thought leader was easier said than done! Step 1 is a whopper, but there’s no escaping it. It’s essential.
To develop credibility, you must have the requisite knowledge or expertise. Without it, your insights are unlikely to resonate with an audience that does possess those things. And to be a thought leader, that’s precisely the audience your message needs to impress.
There are a few ways to amass that expertise. The first is the old-fashioned way: years and years of experience on the job. If you’re a seasoned vet in your industry, this is great news, because chances are you’re already sitting on a mountain of valuable insight. This experience is difficult to replicate, and a zoomed-out perspective spanning multiple business cycles commands respect.
If you lack decades of experience, don’t panic. Long-tenured, hands-on experience is not the only way to acquire knowledge worthy of thought leadership. Alternatively, aspiring thought leaders can commit to the deep study of a domain. While this is a shortcut relative to the first path, it’s not an excuse to bypass the work. Rather, it’s a decision to accelerate one’s learning by wading into the weeds of a subject, carefully observing the best practices and shortcomings that others might overlook in their day-to-day course of business. We can “borrow” credibility by studying a category’s successes and failures in painstaking detail. Sometimes, fresher eyes - those that haven’t spent decades or even years in an industry - can uncover expertise hiding in plain sight through meticulous, detail-oriented study.
Develop unique, differentiated, unconventional, or contrarian insights.
It’s difficult to become a thought leader by echoing the same insights already voiced by the industry’s existing thought leaders. It’s not impossible - some have achieved it by saying them louder and more consistently (if you have a LinkedIn, you know the type). Still, your best path to thought leadership that delivers results is original insight.
If your tenure of experience is your asset, then cultivate insights that leverage it. We tend to exhibit recency bias, a focus on drawing conclusions only from very recent events. But your depth of experience arms you with myriad lessons from the past that others have long since forgotten or never knew in the first place. This is a tremendous differentiator, and with everyone else so focused on today or yesterday, your sage wisdom from historical episodes that resemble this one is sure to stand out.
Similarly, if you’ve spent endless hours studying a specific aspect of the industry, observing successes and failures and synthesizing them into digestible lessons learned, you’re creating insights that others (those who haven’t committed to that study) have overlooked in the haze of their day-to-day course of business. Whether that day-to-day doesn’t allow them to spend the time or they simply don’t want to, your willingness to do it has provided you unique perspective, and conveying it provides a valuable, time-saving service to the category’s most engaged audience.
A warning: don’t be a contrarian just for the sake of it. Audiences see through this act, and they tire of it quickly. But if you hold a firm belief that runs counter to conventional thinking, with a compelling argument to support it, you have the makings of an insight that could pave your way toward thought leadership.
Find high-leverage, high-impact ways to share those insights.
The accumulation of knowledge and the synthesis of unique insights are noble endeavors. However, they’re ultimately fruitless in the pursuit of thought leadership unless we actively share their spoils with the right audience. Sometimes - particularly when we haven’t already cultivated a personal brand or built a large following - it’s not enough to open a social media app and fire off a post, no matter how thoughtful it may be. In many cases, that path leads to discouragement and surrender, and we’re not ones to wave the white flag.
Instead of shouting into the void, we believe it’s important to build assets - differentiated intellectual property. Social media hosts millions of posts daily, and the conveyor belt bringing more posts to your feed runs perpetually. But books, podcasts, newsletters, and white papers are the keys to the thought leadership club. While these fields can also be crowded and competitive, there may be more greenspace in your niche than you realize.
Moreover, by producing one of these assets, you’re demonstrating that you’ve committed the time to develop insights. You’re sending a signal that a social media post never could. Social media has its place, by the way, because once you create an asset, you can repurpose its content across channels, spreading that earned credibility far and wide. Suddenly, those social media posts have more gravitas. Writing a book isn’t about creating a static asset that lives on Amazon or sits on a shelf in Barnes & Noble. It’s about creating a reference to your expertise that you can point to and pull from repeatedly. That’s what we mean by high leverage.
Even better, these assets are valuable networking currency. Industry leaders are far more open to speaking with someone writing a book on a pressing topic or who hosts a thoughtful, regular podcast than to a random individual who sent a vague and unfocused LinkedIn request.
For more on the types of thought leadership content that can drive increased credibility, check out our guide here.
Share those insights consistently.
Becoming a thought leader is not an overnight pursuit. Consistency wins.
Your audience might see your name attached to valuable insight once and appreciate the insight but forget your name shortly after. But if you can make that happen regularly, they’ll begin recognizing your name, and your reputation will soon grow roots. Your job is to command mindshare frequently enough that your name is impossible to forget - we don’t forget things we see daily.
To do that, you have to be visible. Whatever assets you’ve created, you need to promote their insights consistently and across channels. You need to apply those insights and takeaways to relevant events in your industry. As you cultivate your standing as a thought leader, your audience will wonder about your thoughts on a contemporary issue. Do not miss the opportunity to meet that curiosity and satisfy it accordingly.
Show up: on social media, in podcasts, at conferences, and in email inboxes.
Interact and engage with other industry thought leaders.
While we've listed this step in the final spot, you should execute it concurrently with steps 3 and 4. If you’re starting with a smaller following, it can be challenging to grow it in a silo without a bit of viral luck. If we had the formula for viral luck, this blog would be shorter.
So what do you do? You borrow from those in your niche or industry with large followings.
Once you’ve developed unique insights and perspectives, you want to engage existing thought leaders with those ideas, or even enlist them in developing new ones. We can accomplish this in a few ways. The most straightforward is engaging in social media conversation. Reply thoughtfully to their posts, adding a new viewpoint. Flag news to their attention that they may have missed. Be helpful and add value. We’re not posting for posting’s sake but rather trying to build a peer relationship built on mutual expertise. Engaging in person delivers even stronger results in that regard. Seek out opportunities to ask thoughtful questions at industry conferences and events. Building familiarity now will pay dividends later.
Alternatively, if you’re building an asset like a book, newsletter, or podcast, engage incumbent thought leaders for a quote or an interview. Most will be flattered to be asked; most also recognize that these opportunities to be quoted compound on each other, further solidifying their status as thought leaders. In a way, you’re doing them a favor…or at the very least validating their status. If they agree to be featured, they’re also likely to be inclined to share your work, which goes a long way in establishing momentum.
The conversations you want to be a part of are already happening. So be part of them. Eventually, you’ll be the one contributing the most memorable points and - even better - starting and owning the conversations.
Are you ready to claim your status as a thought leader? Now that you know how to become a thought leader, it’s time to take the necessary steps. ThoughtLede works with individuals and businesses to create assets - newsletters, white papers, eBooks, and more - that deliver your unique ideas to the market and accelerate your path towards thought leadership. Get in touch today to amplify your credibility and subject matter authority.