How to become a visionary thought leader.

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it’s been. A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be,” Wayne Gretzky, the world’s greatest hockey player.

In our decade and a half working with companies of all sizes, across a broad range of industries, we’ve found that most founders and CEOs need guidance navigating and learning the art of how to build their executive visibility as an industry thought leader. You may ask, what are the benefits of thought leadership and how to get started?

What is an industry thought leader?
To be a successful industry thought leader, you have to stand out. This is no easy feat when there is so much noise on the internet. Did you know that thought leadership comes in several flavors? From the get-go, you want to avoid vanilla flavor. Why? Because vanilla is safe. It’s like the khaki pants of ice cream flavors. You’ll just be one of many in a sea of executives sporting the same khaki pants. To stand out, you have to be distinct. The type of executive leader that we examine in this blog post is what we call a visionary thought leader. 

Thought leadership goes well beyond the knowledge of one’s business, product, technology, or industry landscape. The goal is to build an executive’s visibility and brand, typically within a vertical sector, so much that the person and the issue, industry, or technology often go hand-in-hand.

Visionaries thought leaders aren’t born; they’re self-made.
Visionary thought leaders are executives willing to plant a stake in the ground and share their perspective as to the future of a market sector or technology. A visionary thought leader can break down, across a myriad of ways, their long-term view of how an issue, industry, or technology will unfold. For example, they are comfortable predicting how specific trends or business factors will ultimately shift the current status quo. Or they can share their deep understanding of how a developing or highly complex technology, such as artificial intelligence or neural networks, will or won’t play out, discuss existing barriers, and what’s needed to progress. Visionary thought leaders typically have a very close finger not only on the industry’s pulse but also with their customers and partners. They have a deep understanding of their customers’ concerns and challenges to keep their businesses competitive.

Visionary thought leaders often have sharp clarity about what’s around the corner from a future perspective well ahead of the market. In a previous blog post, we shared a detailed example of a visionary thought leader and their key traits, taking a close look at industry titan, innovator and thought leader: Jeff Bezos.

3 tips on how to get started in building your executive brand

1. Instead of a bio, tell a story
Unlike a bio that lists your professional work experience and academic studies, an executive profile, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to tell a great story. What trials and tribulations did you have to go through? What monsters did you have to conquer? What voyages or quests did you take to arrive at where you are today? Who helped you along the way? How did you develop into a better leader?

2. What’s your core theme
Identify a core theme that you can confidently and passionately share your perspectives and unique point-of-view. You need to then expand this theme out on several fronts. What are the significant unaddressed facets or plausible scenarios related to which you can provide your perspective? 

Different aspects of your core theme might include imminent industry regulations, customer behavioral trends, diverging approaches on a particular technology, etc. Think about the plausible market, business or technology outcomes, and likely scenarios that will help you get started. An executive can help the market and its target audiences understand how rapid technology advancements are unfolding, what their impacts are likely to be, who stands to lose, and why. For instance, as we face today’s new normal, a broad spectrum of industries are likely to change indefinitely. What does the future hold for your industry? There is no time like the current. Now is an excellent opportunity to look forward and begin to share your unique point of view as to what that future may hold. This analysis will become part of your platform and should be rolled into your content marketing calendar. 

The global pandemic has disrupted the economy and business world into an unprecedented state of chaos. As the country now begins to ‘reopen,’ one highly relevant, forward-looking theme is about redefining work and the future of work. How do businesses move forward in these highly turbulent times with a deadly virus still running wild? How does “business as usual” resume given we are all operating in a time of “business unusual”?

3. Build your social media presence
Begin to share your unique point-of-view by developing a series of thought leadership articles. Once you have a few executive viewpoint pieces ready, start to amplify your content via social shares. It will be important to begin to grow your social media presence. There’s plenty of opportunities to share your perspective with select media about what you expect to unfold in the market. There are opportunities to secure guest post articles in business or relevant industry outlets. Go beyond written communication. You can videotape your perspective and secure a spot as a guest in a related podcast. From there, you can create a landing page and lead magnet with a short ebook and amplify some of this valuable information and content within the company’s LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook channels.

Once you’ve done these things, you can sit back and watch the results come in, right? Unfortunately, no. Building thought leadership doesn’t occur overnight. We’ve worked with clients where results can happen in under one year and some when it took longer. We would not recommend a choppy, intermittent approach, because you lose the momentum you began to build. Becoming a thought leader requires a commitment of time, input, resources and conviction. The more you do it, the more it will pay off for you in terms of market presence, personal brand, and sales opportunities.