Should we kill off ‘thought leadership’? A discussion with Sarah Mitchell about thought leaders, innovators, pioneers and trailblazers!

Sarah Mitchell is the head of strategy at Lush Digital Media. She won’t like me saying this, but I consider her a thought leader in the area of content marketing.

Why won’t Sarah be impressed?

Because she recently wrote a blog post entitled ‘Content Marketing: Are You Still Using Thought Leaders’.

I always find Sarah’s posts invigorating. She’s thoughtful, provocative and writes persuasively.

This particular article in question pulls no punches; it starts off thus: “Are you a thought leader? Is your content marketing full of thought leadership? It’s time to kill off your thought leaders. Trust me on this. A whole lot of people are going to be very happy if you do.”

She goes on: “Thought leaders and thought leadership have reached their sell-by date. If you’re selling yourself as a thought leader, you’re already losing audience because we’re all worn out by the phrase. We don’t believe you. So if thought leaders are dead (or should be) what does that leave?”

Given I host Reputation Revolution, the podcast dedicated to DIY thought leadership and personal branding, I thought I’d better have a chat with Sarah (left) to see what all the fuss was about. {SUBSCRIBE HERE}

It’s a real smack-’em-up affair. No, not really. Our conversation was very civilised and cordial, sorry 🙂

But we do dissect the issue, and I see where Sarah’s coming from. I don’t think she’s wrong by the way – I have a love-hate relationship with the term thought leader myself!

In this episode of Reputation Revolution, we cover:

• Too many people are attempting to produce ‘thought leadership’ content when in reality, it’s the same old stuff.
• “Innovative” is one of the most over-used of all the gobbledegook words: “If everybody’s an innovator, nobody’s an innovator” says Sarah (here, here!).
• Just focus on what you know really well and what you know better than anyone else.
• Consumers are sick of hearing about thought leaders too.
• If you’re a thought leader, you don’t need to tell anyone you’re a thought leader – others will do that for you (* BOOM! * and that my friends is the crux of the issue I think – too many people banging on about how they’re thought leaders when they’re really not; you’re not a thought leader because you say you are; you’re only a thought leader if others think (and tell the world) that you are. In other words, it’s a status that needs to be earned (MORE).
• Business doesn’t need more thought leaders, it needs more missionaries.
• Steve Jobs is “one of the true thought leaders”.
• The world needs more disruptive trailblazers!
• There’s nothing wrong with being a subject matter expert or a practitioner with experience.
• How Xerox canned its thought leadership project because it was just too hard.
• The importance of having an original voice on social media.

I hope you find the discussion I have with Sarah stimulating and illuminating!

Connect with Sarah: