The theme of ‘thought leadership’ has intrigued me for some time now. It caught my attention as something to explore when I came across middle-senior managers in business organizations having one or two annual goals around ‘thought leadership’. Typically this was further clarified as coming up with innovative ideas for scale shifts / breakthroughs or ‘white papers’ on some agreed subjects with little clarity on why this constituted ‘thought leadership’.

What piqued my curiosity was why there was such scarce thought leadership around me, when so many were tasked with it and many indeed were growing up the ladder of rewards presumably because they met agreed goals (that included thought leadership!).

Part of the problem is the dalliance with buzzwords, the desire to embrace the most current ideas and concepts, tools and technologies, regardless of relevance or readiness.

What I learnt at Flame TAO about leadership acts in the last couple of decades are that they go to redefine any of the following: the boundaries, values, norms, notions of power and relationships in a system. It is a departure from the way things have been, and is future-focused.

Does this apply to the notion of thought leadership? I should think so. I believe that it speaks of a contribution:

• That shifts the frontiers of knowledge (and its application), the ways in which a subject / discipline is reframed. This reframing might suggest a paradigmatic shift, a never before way of thinking about things, a new lens.
• That successfully challenges conventional wisdom.
• That makes a compelling case to give up the old and migrate to the new line of thinking.
• That pursues new or novel lines of inquiry finally successfully (sometimes after faltering and failing).

In my view thought leadership is demonstrated when contributions such as the above are:

• Not merely mooted but are championed,
• Where the possibilities and challenges for the world at large arising from new thinking are engaged with,
• The resistances to giving up the old are dealt with vigorously,
• The sceptics and the critics are silenced through the power of sound argument, proof, pilots, or whatever is the appropriate means to assert the new truth.

What criteria do you use to sift through the claims for thought leadership?

This article originally appeared on my LinkedIn page.