The Culture of Thought Leadership

“It requires more courage than capital to get your stuff out there.”

Peter Winick

It can take 20+ years to build a client base which includes the likes of New York Times best-selling business book authors, members from the Speakers Hall of Fame, recipients of the Thinkers 50 Award, CEOs from public and privately held companies and Academics from prestigious institutes such as Yale, Wharton, Dartmouth and the London School of Business. As the Founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage, Peter Winick has done just that. His focus has been to help individuals and organisations build and grow revenue streams through designing and growing their Thought Leadership platforms.

Before we go any further, let’s just make one thing perfectly clear. Thought Leadership is a title bestowed on you by others. It is not, or should not be, something that you start calling yourself. The fact that there are over 1.3 million people with ‘Thought Leader’ in their bio on LinkedIn is, according to Peter, shocking and offensive. It is illegal to go out there and say you are a dentist in most countries unless you have certain qualifications, credentials, et cetera. So, to the 1.29 million of those 1.3 million people, Peter is interested to know why so many believe they are Thought Leaders?

Have you read: The Key to Unlocking Potential – Mark Bragg

As a Thought Leader you have the guts and the courage to lead the conversation of the discipline. In a new direction, unchartered waters or an area which has not been looked at before, without being worried or concerned that everyone has to agree with you.

There is no uniform or commonly accepted definition of Thought Leadership, but Peter likes to describe it as smart, wise, evidence, research and experienced based – and thoughtful. It is not ‘kitschy’ or centred around how it will look on social media; it has depth. Leadership is not new. It has been around, management has been around, resilience has been around. You are adding to others who have gone before you. Basically, standing on the proverbial shoulders of giants. 

Thought Leadership in the first quarter of 2020 was based on the ‘war for talent’. The economy was on fire and finding that elusive ‘work-life balance’ and ‘mindfulness in the workplace’ was in hot demand. The speaking business, where many of Peter’s clients got rich, fat and to some degree lazy, was pretty straightforward.

Then the world stopped. Markets changed.

In today’s world, people are not prepared to pay as much to hear what speakers have to say via zoom however, there are many people who still have something valuable to say. Give a whole bunch of really smart passionate people more time than they thought they would ever have and what do they do? They create really great stuff!

Have you read: How to Build a Trillion Dollar Culture – Scotty Schindler

What COVID has done is accelerate the inevitable. Three-day workshops were waning anyway as audiences are wanting more. If speakers can no longer deliver their thoughts in person, how else can they deliver content and where is their value? What does the new economic relationship look like?

Now is a time for reinventing.

Peter does not create Thought Leadership nor is he a ghost writer or into content marketing. What he does is develop strategies to leverage, monetise and scale the Thought Leadership that you have. It is time to move from push learning to pull and, in today’s conversation over at The Culture of Things (TCoT) Podcast, Peter has generously taken time to discuss the culture of Thought Leadership.

Click here to hear Peter share his ideas on how to capture value in a market that is now a little bit different. Just don’t call him a ‘guru’ as it makes him nauseous. What he prefers is mate…

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Are you frustrated by politics and confusion in your workplace, is there low morale and productivity, or is your business experiencing unwanted turnover and hiring costs? Call me on +61 417 191 409 or email me at brendan@brendanrogers.com.au, and let's have a chat!