- Your title doesn’t give you the authority you think it does.
- Ideas and innovation come from a human spark.
- Why do we pride ourselves on being corporately generic and sterile in our business content?
- Could what’s being published on your behalf have been written or said by just anybody?
- Give people something substantial enough to discuss, to think about, to challenge themselves to agree or disagree with.
Hard Question: Are You Worth listening to?
Titles aren’t enough
No matter how much of a big shot you might think you are because of your position and title, your customers and prospects (plus industry media and AI), just shrugs. There’s a million of you.
Many company leaders, from startup to enterprise, ask themselves over and over, “Why isn’t my content getting more love?” When the real question should be, “Why should anyone listen to me?”
But you’re so much more than a title
It’s okay. That’s a super uncomfortable question for anyone to hit themselves with. It awakens all the imposter syndrome fears that have ever flitted around in your brain like butterflies. But ironically, it’s the most empowering question you could ever ask yourself. It forces you to divorce yourself from your title and pressure test if your positions are strong enough to matter to anyone.
Your company can give you a title. It can’t give you the background you’ve had, the experiences you’ve come through, the lessons you’ve learned, or the way you see your world. Nor do they typically come up with new and interesting ideas. Those always come from human spark. Apple didn’t envision the iPhone, Steve Jobs did.
So I’ll ask you again. Why should anyone listen to you? What are you seeing that others aren’t? What vision do you have that you haven’t heard others express? What kind of voice is missing in the discussion? This is where successful thought leadership begins.
Experience only has worth when it’s allowed to become expressed perspective.
Good business communication or train wreck?
It’s highly likely you’ve spent decades building expertise. Cool.
But if that expertise sits quietly inside your head, buried by over-caution or self-doubt, it helps no one. Experience only has worth when it’s allowed to become expressed perspective. Have you noticed? From cooking influencers to political pundits, expressed perspective is pulls people in.
But on the business side, we for some reason prize being generically corporate, an automaton, safe & sterile, and above all, using lots of words to say absolutely, positively nothing. We think that’s good business communication. It’s a train wreck.
People are looking for your opinions based on where you’ve been and where you are. Can you blame them for scrolling right past a headline they’ve already seen 50 times? Is there something awesome about the way you summarize the obvious? No, give me something I’ll still be thinking about an hour after I’ve read it. For instance, I hope this blog haunts you. 👻
are you going to be you or an echo of everybody else?
Spend ten minutes scrolling LinkedIn. Brutal I know, but bear with me.
You’ll see executives talking about leadership, innovation, culture, AI, customer experience, resilience, transformation, and a dozen other prophylactic topics. Now remove everyone’s profile photo and company logo.
Could you tell who wrote what?
If every post becomes anonymous the minute you remove the byline, now you’ve discovered why so much thought leadership dies a lonely and tragic death. It’s not necessarily that the content is wrong. It’s just interchangeable wallpaper glued on with sameness and blandness and that’s why it elicits a collective “who cares?”
There, you just got your answer to “Why isn’t my content getting more love?”
Let me guess. No one in your comms or marketing ever told you that you were anything other than awesome when you wrote something or made a video or did an interview.
thought leadership is a performative art
Again, it’s not that your content is wrong. It’s just that it’s boring.
I don’t know when or why the business communication field decided there’s no obligation to be compelling or entertaining or motivating or inspirational or revealing. No other media publishers came to that conclusion.
Let me guess. No one in your comms or marketing ever told you that you were anything other than awesome when you wrote something or made a video or did an interview. It’s a true shock that those you pay and whose boss you are won’t tell you there’s no distinctive viewpoint or personality happening. I will.
Not because I’m a dick. But because I know the competitive space for ears and eyeballs and I want your thought leadership to be sought out and widely known.
When you talk privately with friends, peers, or family about what’s going on with work, what do you say? What kind of language do you use? How impassioned do you get? What’s driving you crazy and which trends have you wondering if everyone’s lost their minds?
That! That’s the person I want to listen to, and I’m not alone.
Don’t build an audience, build YOUR audience
One of the strangest goals in executive communication is trying to make sure nobody questions or disagrees with anything said. Congratulations. You’ve created the world’s safest and most invisible article.
I’m not telling you to be inauthentically provocative. I’m not telling you to pick fights. I’m giving you permission to believe in yourself, your POV, your ideas, and put them out into the world. Now you’re giving people something substantial enough to discuss, to think about, to challenge themselves to agree or disagree with.
In business comms, we think if everyone immediately agrees and nods politely, that’s some kind of “win.” It’s a disaster. You and your ideas never entered any conversation. You weren’t worth listening to. Significant thought leadership audiences should be made up of both fans and detractors. Who cares, as long as they seek out your stuff?
Executive thought leadership is NOT marketing content. And the question that needs to be asked is…
Is our executive saying anything worth listening to and are they interesting? Your staff won’t ask that.
put this on your desk so you’ll always see it
That will constantly remind you that if you aren’t a distinctive, recognizable presence in your content, there is nothing to like, comment, or subscribe to.
Think about the people you pay attention to across both entertainment, journalism, and business. Why do you like them? They probably have a recognizable style, personality, and reliable output of value that comes through every time.
What are you doing that would give someone reason to be a “fan” of yours?
your marketing team is trying…bless their hearts
Most conversations about executive visibility and thought leadership focus on tactics.
Should we post more?
Should we do video?
Should we start a podcast?
What AI tool should we use?
How can we automate this?
What’s our SEO strategy?
What are our success metrics?
What’s our distribution and promotion workflow?
Blah blah blah. Not saying those aren’t valid content marketing questions to ask about content overall, but executive thought leadership is NOT marketing content. And the question that needs to be asked is…
Is our executive saying anything worth listening to and are they interesting?
They aren’t going to ask that. They’re scared for their jobs.
AI Is already deciding if you’re worth listening to
AI made it effortless to produce competent business writing. Then it turned right around and made that kind of writing less valuable and stopped it from showing up in AI search query answers.
Consensus is a cheap commodity. Originality is solid gold.
That’s why I’m encouraging executives to kick it up a notch and stand out. Not by publishing more, but by being worthy digital rock stars. By having distinctive frameworks, recognizable language, compelling stories, and opinions rooted in real experience.
Be someone worth listening to and people, as well as AI search, will give you all the love you’ve been looking for.
Who said this?
I’m an executive presence developer. I work with executives to hone a unique POV for breakthrough thought leadership content, then get their team ready to perpetually execute on it across channels and formats.
Mike Stiles
