Thought leaders and practitioning

I love a good debate.  The “academic” discussion, the nuances in the vocabulary and the subtleties in definitions that you reach when you really start to peel back the metaphorical onion on an issue are just too much to resist.

In the spirit of good debate, there’s a wonderful discussion going on between @schneidermike and @adamkmiec on whether one needs to be a first be a practicioner to be considered a thought leader. The ‘debate’, if you will, was touched off during a bit of dialogue that Adam describes below.

Our conversation tonight stemmed from this tweet in which he said, “Besides @chrisbrogan, who are your favorite CRM experts?”  As we traded tweets back and forth I was taking the position that, Chris isn’t a CRM expert and he certainly isn’t a Social Media “thought leader.” Again, I’m entitled to my opinions, just like Mike is.

The one tweet that stuck out to me in our exchange was this one, in which Mike said “whoa there buckaroo! a thought leader does not need to be a practitioner.” Mike was responding to a tweet I wrote that stated “@schneidermike you’re killing me – thought leadership in social – show me the portfolio, what has he done?”

Adam takes issue with Mike’s position that one does not need to be a practicioner in order to be a thought leader. Thus, you don’t have to actually be “doing” in order to have a point of view that you articulate on a particular position.

At the center of the discussion, for what it’s worth, is the venerable social media maven, Chris Brogan. For what it’s worth, Brogan is OK with the tit-for-tat going on in his name (he’s commented a few times on the post), his place is secure, and I, for one, am a fan so the issue here is not Chris, per se, but rather the definitional position of thought leader as it relates to their practitioner status.  Meaning, do they do what they say, walk the talk and so on, and is practitioning a pre-requisite to thought leading (or, thought leadering if we want to just go off the grammatical cliff – WordPress is redlining everything in this post, including it’s own name…funny)

The core of this issue is really important to the concept of thought leadership marketing. If I’m going to leverage content for thought leadership as one of my key go-to-market elements, I’d better know whether or not that content and thought leader positioning is going to work or, in the case of Adam, are people going to react negatively because they feel that I’m on “doing” enough of the craft for which I purport thought leadership? It’s worth noting, by the way, though we’ve already discussed this, but it’s helpful to read about how thought leadership is “attained not claimed” in this context. You can’t just “be” a thought leader – you earn that position. The fact that this is a debate between two ‘audience’ members over the thought leadership status of one person is a perfect play ground for this as the “debate” (though usually a rather silent one) over whether or not a particular company or person is a thought leader should be waged amongst the audience.

For what it’s worth, my contribution to the discussion is as follows:

As someone who makes a living in the practice of helping firms develop and execute thought leadership, I picked up on the back & forth between you and @schneidermike as it was going on (one the fundamentals that thought leaders practice is to stay “tuned in” to what’s going on) out there…

I have to say that I was taken aback by the “thought leader does not have to be a practitioner” quote. In essence, they do have to be a practitioner, but it doesn’t mean that they have to have done everything on which they posit a point of view.

For example, McKinsey may produce a wonderful whitepaper about the coming opportunities & challenges of working in Russia. While they may not have clients doing so, and they may not have a direct ‘body of work’ with Russia, one can simply look to their body of work in globalization as part of their practice and ascertain their qualifications to be a thought leader, so to speak, on Russia.

The other example are coaches. You have great coaches in many sports and professional disciplines who are not, by the nature of their job, practitioners at what they’re thought leading on. However, they have unique insight, a point of view, a philosophy and the ability to teach (educating the market/customers/constituents is also a fundamental for thought leadership). While they may have been practicioners at one time, they were often not the best.

As it relates to Chris Brogan and CRM social media. Perhaps, Chris is not a CRM guru by trade, however, as a marketer, technologist and business leader, (and social media notable, at the very least) his blend of work, though not directly related to the discreet discipline of CRM, could quite readily qualify him as a thought leader int the CRM and social media spaces.

Further, thought leadership is attained through audience validation. An audience (customers, prospects, fans, donors, whatever) “bestows” the “title” of thought leader on an individual. A thought leader to one person or group isn’t necessarily a thought leader to a different person or group. Someone may be the thought leader in an industry, their town or in their association, but may not be considered so in another context.

By all of the criteria by which we measure thought leaders (this is a sample: http://www.marketingsavant.com/2009/02/the-elem…), Chris has the majority of the qualifications.

Mike brings up a significant issue here in that he feels that the pontificators are crowding out the legitimates with alleged thought leading blather.

To me, my exchange with Mike shows the big problem I have with our industry and social media as a whole. We have too many theorizers, talkers, and philosophers who become seen as experts despite their inability to put together a solid actionable plan. This screws it up for every single smart strategist, marketer, etc. out there, because we get tainted with the smell of people who are essentially all talk and no show. Not cool.

Personally, I find that annoying, but thought leaders play offense. (though, someones playing offense with a defensive position is, well, we’re still trying to work from the positive here…).  While annoying, I don’t feel that we’re going to see our industry in ruins as a result.  I’ve often lamented, though not publicly, about some of the nutjobs that are pawning off thought leadership marketing as a get rich quick scheme, but in the end, the people that they dis-serve are not, nor were they meant to be in my tribe anyway, so I let if go.

In the end, it’s up to the audience to decide who’s a thought leader and who’s not, whether they’re a practitioning or not. In the spirit of closing this portion of the debate, the last word goes to Brogan (taken from the comments on the aforementioned post), as I’m quite sure he’s earned it:

Related posts:

1. The Sincerity of Thought Leaders
2. Personal branding – all thought leaders need it
3. When Should Thought Leaders Play Defense?
4. The Sharp Axe of Authority and Wisdom for Thought Leaders
5. Herding Cats: Turning Subject Matter Experts into Thought Leaders

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