Elevate Your Brand By Creating Value: A step-by-step guide to becoming a thought leader.
The idea of thought leadership is predicated on the ability to think effectively, divergently and strategically. It requires discipline and keen ability to entertain thoughts until patterns are visible and developed which I often refer to as the ability to bench press the inner recesses of the mind. Furthermore, thought leadership requires challenging status quo by extending or reimaging things from a divergent point of views while exploring hidden angles. A thought leader has the capacity to entertain thoughts without being defined by them.
In today’s workforce, thought leadership enhances your value within your sphere of influence at work, on your team, in the community or organization. Its time to embrace thought leadership.
Here are five steps to take as you embark on your thought leadership journey.
- Make a commitment — Be intentional about your mind and thoughts by making time to think every day (consider writing down at least 5–10 ideas)
- Think Outside Boundaries — Probably one of the toughest task to do on a daily basis but one that has the biggest return. Find the lines that define issues and explore the alternatives around those edges. To disrupt means to exceed the status quo and building your thinking muscles is a good way to explore disruption. Give yourself permission to think outside the box.
- Explore Divergence — Nurture the ability to think in divergent directions by evaluating everything from at least one different point of view. To be effective at this, ask someone different from you for their opinion and viewpoint. This could be uncomfortable so be patient and allow the lessons to emerge.
- Question Everything — Develop the knack of asking pertinent questions, be a curious learner and filter concepts through your core values, perspective and belief systems. And then process the outliers to appreciate your foundations.
- Embrace Chaos — Resist the urge to solve everything and give yourself permission to be a learner exploring the wonders of life. Embrace the reality that many things might be uncomfortable to accept and see those uncertainties as mile markers and not destinations.
Perhaps, the most important reason, the world needs what you’ve got within you so do the world a favor, will you?
