Thought leader

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Thought leader is a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among their peer mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinkLets).

This term can also be applied to an applied research Center of Excellence or company - often a small business that integrates an ethical culture with highly-effective leadership development.^[1]

According to commentators such as Elise Bauer, a distinguishing characteristic of a thought leader is "the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates."^[2]

Leadership is deliberately causing people-driven actions in a planned way to accomplish the leaders agenda. Phil Cosby^[3]

Thought leadership is an increasingly vital driver of business success. Its aim is to engage people with companies through innovative ideas. The term was first coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy & Business. The term was used to designate interview subjects for that magazine who had contributed new thoughts to business. Among the first "thought leaders," were British management thinker, Charles Handy, Stanford economist Paul M. Romer, Mitsubishi president, Minoru Makihara, and University of Michigan strategist, C.K. Prahalad and his co-author, Gary Hamel, a professor at the London Business School. Since that time, the term has spread from business to other disciplines and has come to mean someone who enlivens old processes with new ideas. As a result, there are thought leaders in the sciences, humanities and even in government.

professional services firms, such as consultancies and accounting firms, thought leadership has gone from the quest to discover new innovative ideas to engage in a discussion with clients, to the repackaging and publishing of old ideas. As a result, the term has been diluted.

Thought leadership is also an emerging discipline in its own right. Our ability to understand its core practices and then, effectively apply them is the key to positioning ourselves and our companies for next level growth.^[4]