Thought Leaders in Your Organization
You know you have talent in your organization … do you have thought leader talent?
In the November issue of Leadership Excellence, Ken Shelton included a list of top 100 thought leaders in the leadership field, and ranked them using a list of seven criteria:
- Academic and professional preparation
- Character (including values , ethics, beliefs , purpose , mission , integrity, and walking the talk)
- Principles (your big message, point of view, tenets, main points)
- Personality (charisma, style, originality, authenticity, one of a kind)
- Performance (inspiring action, real-world performance, work ethic)
- Experience (national and international reach)
- Expression (substance and style in writing, speaking, coaching, consulting, mentoring, training, or teaching)
- Influence (making a difference, results, change, transformation)
In the February issue of Leadership Excellence, I wrote an article with Marilyn McLeod on the value of thought leaders in your organization.
You can probably identify leaders in your organization who have expertise in a specific area. Most thought leaders are specialists, and add value within their fairly narrow area of expertise.
Think of ways to tap their expertise for presentations, coaching, training, and mentoring. Consider their area of expertise, current position, achievements, publications, media coverage to date, and availability.
Now, look for opportunities for improvement within your organization and paint a picture of the value that thought leaders could add by applying their expertise in these areas.
Internal thought leaders can be chosen, in part, by their dedication to their specialty. Internal thought leaders can be even more specialized than external thought leaders by focusing on their company’s unique market and industry.
Thought Leadership comes from outside and inside. You may uncover opportunities for improvement that your internal experts aren’t fully prepared to address, so in some cases you may look outside your organization for expertise.
Internal thought leaders can speak at industry conferences, functional conferences, or market conferences that are important to their company. They can write in industry journals and company publications. They can work with external thought leaders on shared publications.
By knowing external thought leaders—and developing internal thought leaders—you can be better prepared to face the learning challenges of the future.
You can find the complete article at Leadership Excellence - ask for the November and February issues.
Life is good.
Marshall
MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com
Thought Leadership - it comes from outside and inside.
Tags: excellence, Leadership, leadership excellence, Marshall Goldsmith, organizational development, thought leader
February 29th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
[…] Marshall Goldsmith speaks of thought leaders in his latest blog and reflects on the idea that these specialists add value within their area of expertise.  As I was reading this I wondered if there is an antithesis to this idea; the notion of the  ‘thoughtless leader’. While the thought leader had criteria listed such as character, principles, personality, performance, experience etc. as put forth by Ken Shelton in Leadership Excellence the ‘thoughtless leader’ is often someone that you also know within your organization. This would be the person who puts forward an agenda without an understanding of the effect on employees, without a strategic plan for successful organizational change, without character, emotional intelligence etc. How do you move an individual from being a ‘thoughtless leader’ to a valuable member contributing to organizational excellence? In our coaching practice, we find that focussed and precise conversations bring about the transformational change enabling leaders to improve performance and character.  The opportunity to try out and take risks outside of your normal place of comfort with coach support creates a step by step move to the zone of proximinal development. Through coaching this gap closes and with collaborative problem-solving you begin to realize your potential. If more leaders took this approach and became thought leaders imagine the exponential value this would create. […]