Where Will your Thought Leadership Strategy Take You?

A few years ago, I boarded a plane after midnight for a long cross-country overnight flight. Like many of my fellow passengers, I was only half-awake as I staggered aboard, so the flight crew’s routine announcements had the soothing tone of a familiar lullaby. “If Portland is not your destination, now is your last chance to exit the aircraft.”  By the time the crew reached the seat-belt tutorial, I was pleasantly drifting off to sleep.

Then, mysteriously our plane stopped on the taxiway. After fifteen minutes, the plane returned to the gate. Once the jet bridge was reconnected, two teen-aged girls made the long walk up from the rear of the aircraft—heads hung low and shoulders hunched. They looked like they were just old enough to fly on their own. Feet shuffling, they dragged their roll-aboards behind them.

After the girls deplaned, the pilot apologized for the delay. The two girls had missed a gate change announcement and boarded the wrong aircraft. Our flight to Portland wasn’t their destination.

Because they both share a common term, many people assume that these concepts are closely related. However, they describe two very different career arcs and trajectories.

If you conflate the two types of thought leadership, you’ll likely experience frustration and disappointment. It’s like boarding your Manchester-bound flight, only to discover that the plane is heading to New Hampshire instead of England.

So, fasten your seat belts, and remember the nearest emergency exit may be behind you. It’s time to explore the concept of the thought leadership “destination check.”

If you want to become a high-performer in your field, then you’re expected to advance the conversation and present an engaging point of view.

This thought leadership strategy is relatively inexpensive. The primary cost (and barrier to entry) will be your time. As you create content and engage with social media, you’ll get busy and be tempted to let your thought leadership efforts go—but, if you stay the course, you can accelerate your opportunities and potentially multiply your earnings.

There are great resources to help boost your professional standing (and career) through thought leadership. A quick search will lead you to articles on Forbes and great books—such as Dorie Clark’s fantastic book Stand Out.

Now, let’s explore the role of thought leadership professionals—business owners who focus their efforts around the production and dissemination of their content. For these people, thought leadership is their day job; more importantly, it’s what keeps them up at night.

When people think about the business of thought leadership, they often think of a glamorous world of book tours and speaking engagements in exotic locations. However, anyone who has gone through a grueling twenty-city book tour or delivered fifty keynotes a year knows how exhausting they are. These activities take a lot of effort and produce a lot of visibility, but they’re, at best, a means to an end.

Thought leadership businesses typically operate in one of two spheres: direct-to-consumer (B2C) or organizational clients (B2B).

People who launch thought leadership businesses take on a much higher risk, seeking rewards an order of magnitude larger. They’re entrepreneurs building businesses centered on their thought leadership.

Whichever destination you choose, make sure that you’ve chosen the one that’s right for you. Otherwise, you’ll wake-up during the in-flight service and ask yourself, “How did I get here?”