How can you use thought leadership to create a sustainable future for your organization?

Let's Be Honest It's an added responsibility to all the other things you must consider, think about, and meditate on. You have first to agree that it's worth your time. Why? Because the industry deserves the best from you, not just regenerated information you can look up yourself. Being seen as an authority, expert, or guru in a specific profession or sector is known as thought leadership. That extensive expertise offers meaningful, insightful, informative opinions, unique ideas, and NON-traditional viewpoints. Beyond mere competence, a thought leader, must create and carry the conversation, take criticism for your insights and understand that what you offer can only be for a few (voice, written, videos, examples, and other venues).

The Babysitter Niche or overall wisdom is needed. Focusing on your niche stays within your comfort zone. Also! You should also transfer your ideas, knowledge, and experience to other industries. An experienced babysitter has just as much to offer in understanding how to get people to do something they don't want as a college graduate having their first job or a person new to management. In this case, the babysitter is much more experienced and likely qualified. If you don't know or feel you can offer anything, sit down with a seasoned veteran and let them show you where you have a niche or wisdom. Get started volunteering to build your expertise.

It’s not enough to be great. Others need to know you’re great. Sharing best practices and innovations is critical to positioning your organization as a leader in your field.

This is a skill that every professional should add to their toolkit. You need to be able to communicate what you do and why you do it. People connect with your purpose more than what you actually do. Content marketing is a fundamental skill everyone needs going forward.

Volunteer To Gain Experience Volunteering is not truly comparable to the real thing, but it's close. The real thing is tied to losses of money, jobs, products, shareholders, etc. You get to experience leadership and commitment without the actual responsibility. If you take it seriously you gain practical experience. It's personal development investment. Volunteering allows you to learn on the go, improvise, and adapt without being assigned. I wouldn't volunteer at a nonprofit. What I did was find some small businesses; you can choose one close to your career path and tell them you want some type of leadership role, and they don't have to pay you a salary, maybe (if they can afford it) pay for your travel expenses to, and from work.

Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil We have a saying, "Tell the truth, shame the devil." The expression underscores the importance of honesty, in challenging situations where the truth might be uncomfortable or inconvenient. Truthfully, if you don't have experience, you will likely not be heard, no matter how innovative. I would love to tell you that a group of 25-year veterans will listen to your innovative ideas. It's not likely they will, and not likely you will even be in the room. Start with people to help develop your concepts. The first thing you'll learn about innovation is that a good idea, which might seem unique to you, isn't entirely original – someone else may have thought of it, tried it, been there, and done that.

You Can Learn A Lesson From Anything In my opinion, one of the most potent things about thought leadership is the ability to improve; constant improvement can be gathered from any source of activity. A lesson can be learned from everything from Hide-Go-Seek as a child to running a business as an adult. Thought leadership, with its inherent strength, lies not only in the ability to foster constant improvement but also in the adeptness to extract valuable lessons from any source of experience. That's me saying the saying thing sounds like a doctor. 😊 Just showing you two ways to get to a learned experience.

Understand how to lead change in your organization’s culture. The way you sell an idea and implement change is vastly different, for example in a law enforcement environment versus an organization of social workers or scientists.