The most valuable skill for mid-career professionals is thought leadership. It is even more important than a strong resume or LinkedIn profile, and more important than having an active network. This is because if you’re not engaging as a thought leader, there is little reason to navigate to your profile, and your network has no basis to give you ongoing support..
If you Google “thought leadership,” you’ll find a number of useful definitions. I like this one from Forbes: “Being a thought leader means having a unique point of view and consistently living it.” The SEO (search engine optimization) site Semrush has this one: “Thought leadership is the delivery of authentic and genuine content that uses the expertise, insight, and experience of the author, with the goal of sharing that wisdom with others.” The article continues with this statement that I especially like: “Thought leadership is all about you creating value, building knowledge, and taking a stand.”
Yes! Thought leadership is about standing up for what you stand for!
It’s a crowded career marketplace
Search for others who do what you do on LinkedIn. How do you compare? Does your profile differ very much from theirs? If you were up for the same job, who would get the offer?
Thought leadership is one of the best ways for you to distinguish and differentiate yourself from the crowd. It helps you establish your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness so that when you eventually meet or interact with a prospective colleague, they will feel as if they already know you..
Posting online, especially on LinkedIn, is only one of the thought leadership opportunities you have to communicate your unique value. In-person thought leadership venues are also important (professional organizations & affiliations, business events & conferences, professional development, mentoring & volunteering). But LinkedIn is a great place to develop your thought leadership voice, and build a consistent practice. Starting on LinkedIn will raise your visibility and, along with the work and reputation you have built during your career, open up and lead to more in-person opportunities.
Why all of the blah blah blah about LinkedIn?
You may be one of the skeptics who can’t stand LinkedIn and think of it as a “swamp” of spammy marketers trying to sell you services you don’t want, or job postings that are already filled by the time you apply.
You’re not wrong. But if you learn how to use the platform to your advantage, those distractions will become minor annoyances along the path to building business relationships and increasing your ability to attract job opportunities.
- Yes, out of LinkedIn’s almost 1 billion global users, only 300+ million are active monthly users. That’s still huge.
- Of the 200+ million active monthly users in the U.S., over 48% (so somewhere around 100 million) are monthly active users. Again, still huge.
And yet, of those active users, only 1% post content weekly. This means that you have a relatively open field if you want to build an audience for your thought leadership practice. 99% of LinkedIn is looking for content that they can learn from, rely on, and use.
- Posting weekly yields a 2x increase in engagement with you and your profile.
- Long-form posts (+/- 2,000 words) drive the highest engagement. So LinkedIn users want depth.
OK, that sounds intimidating. It does take some work to get noticed and build a following on LinkedIn. But these stats are a reminder that others are making this commitment and reaping the benefits.
After all, LinkedIn is where your peers and colleagues are hanging out. They’re looking for information and business intel and you could become a trusted resource for them.
- 4 out of 5 LI users are classified as “decision makers.”
- 60% of users joined the platform to gain business insights
(Sources: Statista, Kinsta,Hootsuite, LinkedIn)
So why are you not already building a thought leadership practice, starting with LinkedIn?
For most people, these are the obstacles (compiled from the concerns I hear from prospective clients):
- I don’t know what to post about
- I don’t have the time
- I’m not an expert (I feel like an imposter)
- I’m going to run out of things to talk/write about
- What if my boss/company doesn’t approve of me doing this (or what I write about)?
I get it. This is new and uncomfortable. But here are my answers:
Pick Your Topics
You want to confine your thought leadership practice to only a small collection of topics. I like 2-3 to start with. Take the time to think this through. Use the following five criteria to evaluate whether a topic could be a winner for you to claim and build into your thought leadership practice:
Relevant
Is the topic related to the work you do and the industry you’re in? Would others in your field agree?
Topical
Is the topic of current interest? Will it continue to be so, or is it just a passing trend or a fad that could fade?
Critical
Is the topic of vital importance to your field (and perhaps to related business sectors)? This is more than mere relevance or topicality: it addresses something that is an existential concern for your business.
Passionate
Is the topic something you’re personally engaged in? Is it something that drives you, fascinates you, and that you find yourself following and researching whenever you get the chance?
Distinct
Is the topic sufficiently different from the other topics you’re interested in such that you are covering clearly different aspects of your industry, the work you do, or the solutions you provide?
If you’re keeping a daily Intention Journal, that’s a great place to track ideas you might want to consider.
Start Small
Building habits takes time and intention. Once you’ve selected your topics, make a small commitment that you can uphold. One of my recent clients started by committing to posting an article on his profile only once/month for the first three months of his new thought leadership practice. He actually create a 1-year action plan where he is committing to increasing his throught leadership commitment every quarter, and building up to one weekly post by the end of the year.
Set Up Your Sources
You’ll never be at a loss for information or inspiration if you set up a constant, consistent, and automated feed of articles, books, events, updates, interviews, research, statistics, case studies, and other relevant material.
Subscribe to established media outlets, industry publications, blogs, RSS feeds, and newsletters that reflect your chosen topics. Use tools including Google Alerts, Feedly, Readwise, and other content curation services to collect, organize, and access your information feeds.
Monitor your feeds daily to learn what’s new and what could be shared with your community or form the basis of your own opinion post. Building this habit is the key to developing your thought leadership practice.
You Don’t Have To Be an “Expert”
You just have to be knowledgeable and up to date with what’s going on in your field – and only in relation to your chosen topics. Think of yourself as a “fan” of what you do. Think of yourself as a facilitator. Be a “servant leader.” Be an enthusiast. If your topics are indeed matters you’re passionate about, this won’t be a problem. Your audience doesn’t need you to be an expert. They need you to be looking out for them and being their “golden retriever” of actionable information.
Your Thought Leadership Should Align With/Support Your Job
Yes, you may encounter some friction and resistance from old-school managers who don’t understand LinkedIn and think that your thought leadership practice is frivolous, a waste of time, or a threat to the company.
Explain to them that in fact what you’re doing is building more business connections that will benefit your role and bring positive attention to you and the company. Walk them through your thought leadership activities, including the topics you’ve chosen and the information sources you’re using. Make them your partner in this process so that they understand and can defend the value of what you’re doing.
Remind them that business is no longer a top-down hierarchy. It’s a networked, cross-functional world. Your thought leadership practice does not compete with or confuse the company’s PR posture. It enhances it. Your voice and your profile further personalize the company and make it more accessible to the world of customers, vendors, and partners that you want to do business with.
Post Your First Curated Article
If you’re part of the 99% of LinkedIn sitting on the sidelines, it’s time to get in the game.
What’s the most recent development or occurrence in your industry that became national (or global) news? What’s your opinion on this subject? Go ahead and search for other people’s opinion pieces on this news. Find an article that you can either support or critique in an objective and constructive manner.
Copy and paste the URL of this article into a new Post window on LinkedIn and add a few sentences on why you agree or disagree, and conclude with a prediction, aspiration, warning, or a call to action (not unlike the one I’m suggesting here!) for your readers to follow.
You’ve done it! You’re on your way to establishing your thought leadership practice.
