It’s No.13 so that could be the reason for being late this week but in fact, its my last minute discovery of the fascinating ‘2020 Thought Leadership Report’ from Survey Monkey.com
Thought Leadership as a Social Media strategy wasn’t entirely new to me but I hadn’t realised how big it was in that context.
Still, the Survey Monkey report finds a strong congruence of expectations from both sectors, Business and Social.
For example, the second highest score from respondents of the survey was 64% who wanted their Thought Leaders to ‘challenge their thinking.’
And when it came to the No 1 attribute expected by users, Learning was at the top with 70%.
So we’re all on the same page so far but to put things in perspective, when Marketing professionals were asked how they benefitted from Thought Leadership a whopping 71% replied ‘website traffic.’ Not something at the top of the agenda for the those focussed on the business.
So Thought Leadership benefits businesses externally and is managed by outside consultants?
My mind went back to the Critical Thinking process I explored in Article 8 and how it empowered talented internal teams to challenge and improve existing processes and systems within the organisation.
What happens if these two processes…Critical Thinking (internal) and Thought Leadership (external) are hooked up in an organisation?
In Article 8, I defined Critical Thinking as a continuous improvement process in which internal teams ask how we can do things better. It challenges current thinking and ensures that we are constantly looking ahead.
The teams are project driven and supported by a Champion who has influence upwards in the organisation and is engaged downwards.
Thought Leadership has the potential to be a powerful channel for communicating these CT initiatives through an organisations external Communications consultant working with the TL Champion and the teams.
This would have the additional affect of motivating the CT teams and reaching a bigger audience for their outputs internally and externally.
After working in sales and then purchasing roles for almost 18 years with companies in the UK, Japan, Korea and then here in Hong Kong, I became involved in the field of business skills development. 20 years later, my special interests in this area are individual management style building, interpersonal communication and influencing strategies. 