Why the Term “Thought Leader” Isn’t Gross

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael. Today, I’m talking with regular HBR contributor Dorie Clark, author of, most recently, the book Stand Out. Dorie, thank you so much for talking with us today.

DORIE CLARK: Thanks, Sarah. Great to talk with you.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So Dorie, in the beginning of this book, you defend a term that I’m personally on the record as saying I’m no fan of, which is the term “thought leader.” I have always found this, I have to admit, somewhat of an icky term. I don’t know if I want someone to lead my thoughts. And I’m sort of just wondering why can’t we just say expert? Why do we need this term “thought leader”? And why do we need more people to embrace it and become thought leaders?

DORIE CLARK: So I agree with you 100% that it is very icky when people call themselves thought leaders because that sounds a little bit egomaniacal. But I actually think that thought leadership is something that is worthy to be aspired to because I actually like the precision of the definition.

Being an expert is great, right? It’s fantastic. But I don’t think it’s sufficient anymore. Thought leader, if you parse it, if you break it down into its constituent parts, so number one, thought, right? It means that you are being known and recognized for your ideas. It means that you have that expertise. That’s a valuable thing that I think we can all agree on.

But the leader part is the essential one. There are far too many people who are in their ivory tower. They have great ideas. But they don’t do anything to share them with the world. And anytime you have an idea that’s locked up in the attic, it’s not doing you any good. It’s not doing society any good.

I want to see people who are out there and active and engaged and making a difference with their ideas. That’s how we get real change. And so aspiring to be a thought leader, somebody who has great ideas that he or she shares with the world, I think is actually a pretty noble endeavor.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I think that’s a fair point. It’s a fair point. And that’s very much in line with how we here at Harvard Business Review feel about if more people saw themselves as leaders, the world would be a better place.

I guess my other question, though, is since there are people out there who will sort of claim the title, whether or not they really have earned it, how do you know if you have really developed enough expertise to have that kind of influence? How do you know that you’re really talking about something that you do know a lot about and not just kind of pontificating about something that maybe you have strong opinions about but not enough expertise to really own?

DORIE CLARK: So in my book Stand Out, I actually describe a three-step process to building a following around your ideas, to becoming the leader part of the equation. And basically it goes like this. It’s first building your network, next building your audience, and then finally building your community.

And what that means [INAUDIBLE] is that the essential initial starting point is building this one-on-one network of trusted people that you surround yourself with. You got to start here. You got to have people who you really respect and trust around you, who can say to you honestly, Dorie, this is a great idea. You should run with it. Or Dorie, this is a terrible idea. Definitely don’t pursue it.

Everybody needs to have this kind of kitchen cabinet– I like to call it a mentor board of directors– around you, because you’re right. Sometimes we can’t trust ourselves. Sometimes we get really excited about something, and it may be great or it may not be. But we’re humans. We have blind spots. But if you take the time to assemble people around you who know more than you and are people that you think have great judgment, they can help you figure it out.

So you build that network. Then once they’ve said, you know what, this is great, go for it, you start to build your audience, which is where you begin to communicate the idea more broadly. And again, this is kind of a testing phase, right?

This is where you start going public. You come out a little bit with your idea. You write blog posts. You give speeches. Maybe you do a webinar. And you start to see what the response is. And if people are liking it, if they’re finding it helpful, if they’re finding it useful, then you can double down on it, and the word will began to spread.

And then, finally, if your idea really is good, if people really find it valuable, then you can begin to build your community around it. And what I mean by that is that there’s kind of a tipping point that happens where your audience, if they are engaged enough, they start talking to each other.

It’s not just you talking about things anymore. It’s them talking to each other. And they become ambassadors for your idea because they believe in it too. And that’s when you really have success and when your ideas can spread.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, and it’s interesting that that final part is having other people share the idea on your behalf. Because I think one thing, I think, a lot of people worry about is getting credit for being the one who came up with the idea. Is that something people should care about? Should they care about getting credit for the idea? Or should they just care that people want to spread the idea?

DORIE CLARK: I think there’s two answers to it. So the first one is that so many people are so obsessed about who gets credit for an idea that oftentimes it actually stymies the spread of the idea. If you are so worried about, oh, they’re going to take my IP, they’re going to take my amazing idea, then that actually prompts people never to do anything with it.

They think it’s so valuable they sit on it forever. And that’s actually kind of sad. That’s sort of a maladaptive behavior. I think that, yes, of course, you want credit. You deserve credit for it. But you can’t be paranoid about other people stealing your ideas.

What I have found in my research is that the very best way to ensure both that your ideas spread and that you get credit for it is just going out there and communicating about your idea, creating content around your idea as much as you possibly can. Because then you don’t have to worry about it. The world is going to police it for you.

If I said, hey, Sarah, guess what? I’m going to write this great book about women’s leadership, and I’m going to call it Lean In. This is not me successfully stealing an idea. This is me saying something that’s going to make me look so incredibly stupid. Everyone would be like, um, Dorie, I think that’s already been written by Sheryl Sandberg, and you just have to go hide in your cave.

So if your idea really becomes part of the cultural fabric, no one is going to steal it because everyone’s going to say, hey, wait a minute. He came up with it. She came up with it.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s a fair point. One of the interesting tactics you talk about in the book too, which I think may help with that and I sort of wanted to double back to, is combining disparate fields into a new perspective.

Because there might be a lot of experts out there in particular fields already, so maybe you don’t want to compete directly with them. But you might be someone who can combine these disparate fields into being an expert in a cool, little niche. Could you just say a little bit more about that?

DORIE CLARK: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the longstanding tenets of creativity research, actually, is about combining two things that really don’t make sense together. So I mean, if I was going to be designing a new washing machine, maybe the inspiration would be, OK, let’s see. How can I apply the concepts of ballet to designing my new washing machine?

And then it’s like, oh, well, OK, this suggests all these interesting things. Maybe how can I make my washing machine more graceful? Or how can I make it lighter on its feet or whatever? And so creativity researchers have been talking about this for a long time.

But the point that I wanted to make in Stand Out is that actually when it comes to thought leadership, when it comes to developing your own ideas, we can apply some of these same principles in our own professional lives. I mean, for many, many professionals, we have different parts of our background that are actually kind of unique. But historically in the workforce, we’ve been taught to tamp them down and just not mention them. Oh, it’s not relevant.

And maybe you’re a really talented French horn player, or maybe you were a serious athlete in college, or maybe you switched careers. And before you were a journalist, you were a cab driver. I mean, there’s a million possibilities. But all of those things enable you to see the world differently than other people. And that’s what can enable you to really just capitalize on that if you think about it the right way.

So one of the people I profiled in Stand Out was a guy named Eric Schadt who has become one of the most successful scientists today because he really dove into and pioneered the use of big data in biology. And the reason he was able to do that is that his initial training was in mathematics and computer science. And so he saw the potential of big data far before any other classically-trained biologists did.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Hmm. That’s interesting because to my liberal arts mindset, big data and biology seem like they would naturally go together.

[LAUGHTER]

But yeah, I can see it also sounds like not only are you sort of coming up with creative new ideas that way, but you’re also finding a way to differentiate yourself. Maybe there’s some biologist out there who’s already the best biologist in the world, and some big data guy’s already the most respected big data guy. But combine those two things together, and you’re sort of in a new field where maybe there’s not as much competition.

DORIE CLARK: Yeah, that’s exactly right. It enables you to create a niche of one, and so you can really own it. I mean, one of the examples that I talked about in my first book, Reinventing You, was Tim Ferriss, who I’m sure many avid podcast listeners are familiar with. He was the author of The 4-Hour Work Week.

But it was interesting because he wrote this book that was a business book essentially. His follow-up book was called The 4-Hour Body, which was a fitness book. And then his follow-up to that was The 4-Hour Chef, which was a cookbook. I mean, it’s crazy. I mean, there’s a lot of business authors you have on this podcast. Probably not a lot of your listeners would be interested in having the Michael Porter cookbook.

But Tim Ferriss was able to pull it off. And the way that he was was that he said, you know what? It’s not that I wrote a business book, and then I do fitness, and then I do cooking. It’s that I’m doing the same thing. I do lifestyle design. And then it’s like, oh, whoa, he’s created this new category, and he’s able to be the expert. He’s able to be the best at it.

And it cuts through the swath of everything that he’s interested in, and it suddenly makes sense as a brand. And so if you’re able to do that, if you’re able to find the commonality, if the place on the Venn diagram where all of these categories overlap, you can create something very new and distinctive.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, and that’s interesting. And that sort of gets to my next question, which is, what if you’re not really an expert in enough things, one or two or three things, to really be a thought leader in any of those categories, but you’re really just more of a generalist?

DORIE CLARK: Well, I think, first of all, this is something that I’ve encountered. I mean, I like to think of myself as a Renaissance person, but I like to do a lot of different things. It was very hard for me to think about taking narrow areas of specialization. I mean, some people are so passionate about a given topic, of course it’s self-evident they want to specialize in that. They want to dive down into it.

But for a different type of person, which I class myself as being, you want to do a little of everything. It’s just kind of how we’re wired. But actually, it turns out that is OK. And what I discovered from my research for Stand Out is that a lot of the best ideas– I think that there’s a myth about how breakthrough ideas are developed. People oftentimes think that it is just some bolt from the heavens, that, oh, they had this idea, and then they go and they execute it.

The truth is, most people don’t magically have an idea and execute it. What happens is they find an area that they’re interested in. They immerse themselves in it. They roll up their sleeves. They start mucking around and doing things in that area. And it is through the process of engaging with it that they discover what question they want to solve, first of all, and then what the answer to that question might be.

You don’t know enough going in. Almost no one knows enough going in to be able to predict not just the answer, but even the question. But it’s through doing that you can find it. So I think a lot of people disqualify themselves up front because they say, oh, I just don’t have any ideas, or I don’t know enough about it. But if you dive in, more often than not you will actually be able to find it through the act of making it happen.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Hmm. Well, and it’s interesting you mention that because I think people may be hesitant to dive in, as you say there, because they’re sort of nervous about not having enough to say. Other people may also be a little bit worried about sticking their necks out, a little bit worried about making themselves more of a public intellectual on some topics or any topic. What do you say about that sort of reticence to have that kind of public voice?

DORIE CLARK: So I think that it’s important to note that there’s different gradations, right? We are not saying to everybody, you must be some celebrity. You need to write a book. You need to go give a lecture tour. What I am saying, however, to everybody, which I really do believe, is that it is increasingly important in our economy, in our society, for every professional to have some area of expertise that they are recognized for. This is the ultimate form of career insurance that you need to have.

Because let’s take, god forbid, the worst-case scenario. If your company hits hard times, if the economy hits some bumps and there are layoffs that need to happen, who’s going to get laid off? Well, the last people that would get laid off would be the folks who have a really strong brand, who are known for something. Because they’re the ones that when people are tallying up the list, they’ll say, oh, we can’t afford to lose him. He’s so good at XYZ. What will we do without someone with that aptitude?

But if you don’t have a strong brand, if people honestly don’t really know what you’re good at or what you’re good for around the office, then they’ll say, well, I mean, she’s a nice person, but I guess if we have to make a tough choice we can let her go. So you need to show people why you’re valuable.

Not just, too, as a defensive move, but also as a proactive move. Because when you demonstrate your talents and expertise, it makes it far more likely that people are going to think of you. You’re going to be the first person that comes to mind when there are great opportunities that you would be hungry for– that promotion, that opportunity to be on a really great project, that overseas assignment. You want to be at the top of the list.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: OK, great. So I think you’ve made a really good case for why we should become thought leaders, even if it’s a phrase that maybe is jarring to us at first. I just have to finish by asking one question that might seem a little oddly specific.

But so many people, when they’re on this path, seem to think that they have to come up with a new turn of phrase, a new coinage or catch phrase, almost a slogan for the idea. I’m sure we can all supply our own examples. Is that something that’s really necessary or useful when you’re trying to get traction for an idea?

DORIE CLARK: Yeah, this is really sort of the bane of my existence, Sarah.

[LAUGHTER]

So I’m right there with you. I do a lot of things these days. I teach business school, and I write business books and give talks, and I still do marketing strategy, consulting, and coaching. But in the early days of my business I was just a marketing consultant, and that was my beginning. And so I would work with clients, and we’d be doing these marketing plans.

And they would say, well, we go through this whole process. We talk about all these important things [INAUDIBLE], but what we really need is a slogan. And it would drive me nuts because you have to push back because that is the tip of the iceberg. Honestly? It’s the uneducated person’s version of what marketing is. And I don’t mean uneducated like unschooled. I mean, somebody who just doesn’t get marketing.

Because when they think marketing, oh, we need our own “just do it.” And the truth is, yes, it’s a marvelous slogan. It’s wonderful. But your insurance agency does not need a just do it or whatever it is. What you need is to understand fundamentally who you are, to understand who you are vis-a-vis your competitors and your customers and how those pieces fit together.

If you go for the easy, if you go for the cherry on top of a slogan, it’s frankly going to be pretty hollow. If it emerges organically, that’s fantastic. But I think there’s a lot of things that are much more important than just a slogan. I think that when it comes to some kind of a breakthrough idea or whatever, the truth is it doesn’t have to be Newtonian. It doesn’t have to be some Einstein idea.

People get held up sometimes because they think, oh, I need to develop something so different the world has never seen it. But when I’m talking about an idea that can really make a difference for your company or for your career, it’s something that is a breakthrough because it moves the ball forward. It advances things in some powerful way. But it doesn’t have to be earth-shattering.

My favorite example is Howard Schultz. This is a guy who did not invent coffee. He did not invent coffee shops. He invented a different way to organize a coffee shop, a “third place.” And I’m also willing to bet that the “third place” tagline was not the first thing that he came up with. I mean, this is something he had to iterate and evolve.

When he first brought the Starbucks concept, the Italian-style coffee shop concept to America, he made it too Italian. It was not quite right. He had to keep tweaking it. But eventually he found the balance.

And so for all of us, as individuals or for our companies, as we’re thinking about developing breakthrough ideas, it’s not that you have to come up with something that the world has never seen before. It’s certainly not that you have to come up with some catchy slogan, and that’s going to solve all your problems.

It is really about understanding in a very thorough way who you are in the world, what you want to express, and how you can give the best of yourself to your customers or the people around you. And when you figure that out, the slogans solve themselves. It’s about finding more ways to be helpful.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, Dorie, I think that’s a great point. Sometimes it is just figuring out a new way to be helpful. Thanks again for joining us today.

DORIE CLARK: Sarah, thank you.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That was Dorie Clark. For more, check out her book Stand Out and her articles on hbr.org.