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What Actually Counts As Thought Leadership Today?

I’ve been called a “thought leader” for many years.

I never really liked the term… it always felt a little self-important?
My only consolation is that it’s not a title I have given myself, but rather something that others have called me.
Beyond my own self-esteem issues, the term always felt a little too vague.
With that, I have spent my career doing the deep work: building businesses, reading, writing, thinking, authoring books, hosting conversations, tracking ideas, following culture, presenting ideas to live audiences, connecting dots… so what should I call it?

The problem I’ve always grappled with is: What actually makes someone a “thought leader” vs. just another person posting hot takes?

According to Cindy Anderson (IBM Institute for Business Value and co-author of the book, The ROI of Thought Leadership) the definition is very clear:

Thought leadership is evidence-based, original thinking that influences an audience to take action.

That’s it… three parts… no fluff:

It’s got to be grounded in primary research.
It has to offer something new – not a rehash or hot take.
It has to actually move people (ie get them to buy).

Fair… and powerful.

But what about the messy parts… and this must be about more than the person who did the research?
What about the intuition… the unfinished ideas… the cultural cues that can’t be cited but still spark something… the way an audience connects to a specific Thinker…

After our conversation, I’m not sure I fully subscribed to her definition.

Thought leadership isn’t just about having the receipts.
Yes… original research and thinking matters.
Yes… evidence matters.
Yes… action matters.

But the best thought leadership doesn’t just make you do something… it makes you feel something.

It’s the moment an idea gets under your skin… not because it was cited in a white paper but because it named something you couldn’t yet articulate.
It’s not always neat… not always quantifiable.
It’s part insight… part provocation… part art.

To me a Thought Leader can read the room, the culture, the moment… and give you language for what’s shifting… often before you knew it was shifting.

It’s curiosity over certainty… questions that haunt… the courage to think out loud in public.
Thought leadership is original thinking that’s felt, remembered and repeated.
And if it doesn’t change the way someone sees the world (even a little) then maybe it’s just research?

Cindy and her team at IBM studied this space in depth.

They surveyed thousands of execs to understand what kind of content actually lands (and what just scrolls by).

And her data is clear: Most content fails because it’s missing one of those three elements…

It’s not grounded.
It’s not original.
It doesn’t lead to action.

But here’s what struck me:

If most content is noise… and if true thought leadership is rare… then maybe we’ve been mislabeling a lot of things.
Maybe the best thought leadership isn’t just what gets clicks or shares… maybe it’s what gets remembered?
So yes, I appreciate Cindy’s clarity (and how they put a real and tangible number on it).

But I also think we need room for ideas that surprise us.

That make us feel something.
That leave us changed even if we can’t explain exactly why.
The real ROI might not only be in the research or the download or the lead gen.
It might be in the idea that someone can’t stop thinking about.

So, what counts as real thought leadership?

The rigor of research and ROI… or the resonance of a bold idea that hits home, gets shared and sticks in your brain like a lyric?
Maybe it’s both?

Which definition of thought leadership feels more true to you?

Let’s hear it…

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.