The Model
The 5 elements of thought leadership
After having defined what the characteristics of a real thought leaders are, I started to think of the elements I wanted my potential students to develop. As mentioned earlier, I also wanted to secure that they could act in an environment of (large) corporations.
After careful debate, and after trial and error in my first thought leadership class, I came up with the following five elements:
Content Creation:
The ability to create content that is forward looking, put into a wide context and if possible, also provoke discussion (in order to create movement)
Networking and Knowledge Gathering:
Gathering knowledge as part of the thought leader process, as well as being able to create your network to promote your thoughts
Personal Branding:
Establishing a recognisable personal brand in the market to be sought after as a thought leader.
Salesmanship:
You need to be able to sell yourself, your thought, and your company. Many thought leaders are part of a larger organisation and need to be able to sell the offerings / products of the company. It is their role to put the organisation into a number one spot when it comes to selling. Hence, asking for the deal or helping sales close the deal is a crucial part of thought leadership
Influence and Support:
The important ability to have others support you, help push your thought and make sure that when things get though (or political), you will prevail and get the right support
The different proficiency levels
A Craftsman that is an expert already in his field, but very specialised and very much in-depth focused on his/her level of expertise itself.
An Advisor to others on the specific topic of his/her field. Knows to contextualise the topic considering all other developments ongoing (economical, technological, etc).
A Visionaire that will give prediction on the future based on one's topic. Will be able to describe a "Horizon 3" and can explain what the implication on the short and mid-term are as well as the long term
Different views for the different elements
The proficiency levels as described above are the ones for the element of Content. For each of the different elements, the proficiency levels will have different descriptions so that it becomes easier for the reader to understand what kind of skills he/she needs to acquire