The origins of thought leadership and the catalysts that spurred its growth
I spend a lot of my available working hours on LinkedIn. As much as that pains me, it is a fact of business life that LinkedIn is the primary platform that connects me with the people in my industry that I want to learn from and the prospects I want to convert into customers.
There is, however, an aspect of LinkedIn that has always fascinated me and that is ‘thought leadership.’
Yet despite the term being used (and abused in many cases) by an increasing number of people, there is still some ambiguity as to what ‘thought leadership’ really means and where it originated.
So, as the head of a PR agency that was once heralded by a client as being “The thought leaders on thought leadership”(which was ever-so generous), we want to provide some clarity.
The origin of the term ‘thought leadership’
The earliest definition dates back to 1994, when Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief at Strategy+Business magazine (published by PwC), said in an article:
“A thought leader is recognised by peers, customers and industry experts as someone who deeply understands the business they are in, the needs of their customers and the broader marketplace in which they operate.
“They have distinctively original ideas, unique points of view and new insights” to report at more frequent intervals.
It took a further decade before the concept of being a ‘thought leader’ gained any traction, and it took two key sparks to light the fuse:
- The development of the internet.
- The financial crisis of 2008/09.
As the financial crisis of the last decade took hold, today’s pre-eminent vehicle for thought leadership content, LinkedIn, was playing catch up with then market-leader Plaxo in its bid to become the foremost social network for professionals.
At the same time, Google was starting to eclipse Yahoo! as the search engine of choice and search engine optimisation (SEO) became a ‘thing’ that few people understood other than it simply made content more easily discoverable. This helped to open up the concept of blogging to a much wider audience.
Indeed, self-publishing platforms such as TypePad that had hitherto been the reserve of techies and journalists gained popularity thanks to ‘influencers’ such as Seth Godin who pioneered and championed the format.
By 2012, the green shoots of economic recovery not only signalled a return to growth for the economy, it also gave rise to the likes of Medium and revamped versions of WordPress and Wix.
As a result of this, self-publishing both easier and cheaper and the door was swung wide open for the wave of self-professed thought leaders to make their mark.
State of thought leadership today
The rise of the so-called thought leader was more gradual than meteoric. That was until 2020 when the world was turned upside down by the pandemic. Suddenly everyone (OK, slight exaggeration) began to lay claim to being a thought leader to fill the information void that existed.
In fact, three months after the start of the pandemic, we noted that there were 1.1 million people on LinkedIn whose job title included ‘Thought Leader.’ Today that number stands at 1.5 million. Are they, though? Err no, but that’s a debate that needs a separate blog of its own.
Thought leaders have always existed and will always be in demand. During times of economic and political uncertainty the need for insights and ideas that can provide decision makers with a full or even just a partial solution to the everyday challenges they face will remain high.
This presents an enormous opportunity for those who are genuine thought leaders – by which we mean people who are regarded by their peers, customers, and industry as a whole as being so.
To become positioned as a thought leader takes time and commitment. It also takes a bloody good PR strategy to make it happen! Did we mention that we have provided thought leadership (aka Executive Profiling) for leaders since 2014? They include CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, MDs and everyone in between, above and below from organisations employing 10 people to more than 1,000 across the world. Get in touch if you want help in this area!
