How to Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader

You're listening to the nonprofit power podcast. In today's episode, we reveal how to establish yourself as a thought leader. So stay tuned. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because we are talking about thought leadership. And there is nothing that I get asked about more, honestly, with my private clients, with my coaching groups. Everybody wants to know some aspect of how can I either become a thought leader or improve my standing as a thought leader? How can we establish our organization as the thought leader in the space that we work in? And I'm working with a bunch of clients on all these pieces. So today I'm bringing back an episode that I did a couple of years ago on this very topic that got a ton of downloads at the time, but I wanna bring it back fresh because what I'm hearing is that it's at the top of everybody's mind. So without further ado, let's replay that episode. Mhm. I hear from so many nonprofit leaders who want to establish themselves as thought leaders in their niche. But the whole process around how you do that tends to be shrouded in mystery. It's time to demystify. There are seven basic ingredients, and today we break them down and give you a roadmap to becoming a thought leader. One of the most common things that comes up when I'm working with clients on creating a comprehensive strategy for building influence. Is they'll say to me, we want to be known as the thought leader on our thing that we're experts on. Which is awesome. But there's saying it and then there's actually making it happen. And I wanted to talk a little bit today about how you actually go about establishing yourself as a thought leader in your particular area of expertise. It sounds great. But there are a lot of pieces to actually making that happen and to having it really buy you anything. The first question is why would a direct service nonprofit want to be a thought leader in some aspect of their space in the first place? Why would you even want that? Well, the obvious reason is you want influence. The whole reason we're doing advocacy is to have influence over policy, over practice, over funding decisions, allocation of resources, all of those things. So fundamentally becoming a thought leader is about influence. But it's important to get clear about why you want that influence. Beyond just, I want to influence decision makers. Because you can influence decision makers by building relationships and you don't have to be a thought leader in order to do that. The reason to become a thought leader is because you want to influence on a broader scale at a higher level. At the thought leader level, you're really looking to influence the overall direction of policy and practice. The overall direction of allocation of resources. And what we say are the priorities for allocation of resources. It's a much bigger arena. And when you're a thought leader you're getting other people to think differently about something, usually something pretty specific. You're bringing alternate views and insightful points. And ultimately you're moving people closer to your vision and working together with them to make that vision happen. So that's a distinction I always draw with my clients about what are you aiming for here? most of the time the answer is, yeah, we want that. We want that larger influence. we want to be operating on a bigger stage, in a bigger arena. And have greater influence over the direction of things. Because we're tired of always having to tinker around the edges, but never feeling like we're really changing things on a more fundamental level. if you want to change things on a fundamental level, then becoming a thought leader in your area of expertise is an incredibly valuable thing to do. So that's great. How do I do that? How do I get to that? there's a lot of answers to that question. And I'm going to take all of that apart in this episode. one of the things I want to call out from the beginning is that there's sort of two ways to think about thought leadership. One is as an organization. your organization can be established as a thought leader in a particular space. And then within the organization, different individuals are known for particular areas of expertise in that broader realm. that's one way to do it. I've seen a lot of organizations do that very successfully. I have a coalition client that's operating on the national level that has done a phenomenal job at that. You can also go at this as I want to establish myself. I am already a leader. I want to become a thought leader in a particular space. And that is great. I want that for every one of you who wants that. Not everybody wants that. And that's totally fine too. So the first thing to get clear on is. what is the goal? Are you trying to establish your organization as a thought leader? Or are you trying to establish individual leaders as a thought leader? Or both. The good news is that the recipe is basically the same, no matter what your answer to that question is. But it's very helpful to get clear on that fundamental question before you get going. I will tell you that as an individual thought leader. it will feel riskier. It will feel like it is taking you substantially out of your comfort zone a lot of the time. And sometimes the way people work their way toward becoming an individual thought leader is that first they do the work of getting the organization established as a thought leader in a space. then as their comfort level with that status they're able to step more into the role of a thought leader as an individual. And that is a personal growth trajectory. a lot of things go into that decision. So the only major difference in the process of establishing thought leadership is how much you are going to put yourself as an individual out there in the world and risk being judged, risk being criticized. Because you will be. Thought leaders are routinely judged and criticized. You have to be ready to deal with that. your ability to grow as a thought leader and to establish a presence as a thought leader is directly proportionate to your ability to let that stuff roll off your back, to not take it personally, and to just say, you know what, I'm about something that is much bigger and much more important than my personal ego. I don't care what people think about me. I care that they get on board with my vision, and that I find the people who are aligned with that vision. And there are other thought leaders and that together we can make big change happen. But you have to be ready for that. So most people go through a process of getting better at it, growing their ability to handle criticism, to handle judgment. it's not all or nothing from the get go. But be aware that that is something that will be in the equation. I'm going to walk through the elements are the key ingredients of becoming a thought leader in a particular space. I will do my best to be as concise as possible. but there's a lot involved. And again, realize that you don't declare that you are going to become a thought leader and then say, ah, yeah. And I'll do that on Tuesday. It is a process. And the more you are intentional about the process, the more likely you are to see more results sooner. If you're kind of loose about it, unintentional, putting yourself out there here and there, when you have a minute. It's like any other part of influence building or advocacy work. If you're not consistent, if you're not intentional, you're going to see far less impressive results, and whatever results you do see are going to take a lot longer to make happen. So if you want this, be intentional and be consistent. go out and do the things that we're going to walk through now. the very first thing. If you aspire to become a thought leader. Or a more influential thought leader if you already have some beginning elements of that, is that you must know your niche. Nobody is a thought leader on everything. the more focused you are on your particular niche, which is going to be directly tied to your area of expertise. What is the thing that, you know the most about? And that you spend time, not just doing the work, but thinking about how could this be better? How could we be solving this problem more effectively? Or, geez, I see all these policies and systems that are structured in a way that just really don't make sense, and aren't designed for the best results to happen. If you spend time thinking about that in a particular space, a particular niche, that's where you're going to be the most effective as a thought leader. So figure that out first and get clear about it. It is a good strategy to begin narrowly. And then you can expand your sphere of influence you can expand your niche over time. But specificity is your friend in the beginning. So you want to know your niche and you want to be pretty darned expert in that niche. Now. That doesn't mean that you have to know every piece of policy, every funding mechanism, every last thing there is to know about that particular thing. Although the more you know about each of those, the better. but you will build your knowledge and expertise further over time. the main thing is that if you know enough about the thing and are passionate enough about it, that you're constantly thinking of how could we make it better? That's a good place. another major ingredient is the ability to think beyond your organization. You must be able to see the bigger picture and to think about and talk about the bigger picture. There's a couple of reasons for that If you're only talking about how things affect your organization, or if you're only talking from the perspective of your organization, it can be interpreted as being fairly self-serving. Other thought leaders will say, well, you know, that's nice, but they're not really thinking about the larger systems involved here. that's very important to understand. You can be as expert as possible and that will not make you a thought leader. The thought leader needs to be expert, but you have to do a whole bunch of other things in order to establish yourself as a thought leader in the area in which you're an expert. being able to think beyond your organization, being able to think about systems and structures, whether those are policy architecture or funding architecture, or a system of practice that goes on in your field, or all of the above. Because almost always they are intertwined, especially if there's any government funding involved at all. no government funding comms without a major policy architecture behind it. So if things aren't working great, aren't allowing the folks who access your services to truly thrive, then you know that. And you have identified issues and problems that need to be addressed in order for this to work better. but you want to be able to think and talk about the whole system, whether it affects your entire community, your entire state or the entire country, depending on the particulars involved. Your knowledge of the nitty-gritty details of the services involved in the problems and challenges around getting to a place of thriving I will inform your thinking. But your vision will take you beyond that, to your unique take on how things ought to work and how we might get there. Very very important is that you bring your passion to this work, to how you talk about it. Being an expert is great, but if you can't engage other people you will never be a thought leader. You can't sit off in a corner and just generate data, or generate reports, and expect that that alone will establish you as a thought leader. You want to have command of the data. You want to have understanding of it. You may even want to generate new data through research if there's a particular thing that you feel that will help with. And I have a number of clients who have gone all in on that and have partnered with major academic institutions to conduct very rigorous research. that may or may not be right for you. But even doing that doesn't make you a thought-leader. It makes you more expert. What you must have is not only a willingness, but an excitement, a passion to find better ways. and that requires acknowledgement that there's always room for improvement. There's always more to learn. more to improve upon. More ways to bring even greater value for more people. And if you're passionate about that. You have the makings of a thought leader. So one element of a thought leader is that they are passionate about what they're focused on. They're passionate about making things better. Again, whether it's policy architecture, funding architecture, practice broadly speaking in the field, or a combination of all of the above, there's a vision. And there's a passion about that vision, about how we make it better. how things really ought to be. first of all, you must bring that part of yourself to this work. And you've heard me say this before, about your other advocacy work. That people need to feel your energy. People need to see and feel that passion. Because it will dramatically affect how you talk about whatever your vision is and what your ideas about solutions are, even if you don't have the solution all figured out because you don't have to. and we'll talk more about that in a minute. But what you do want to do is let that passion show. It's essential. many of us have been taught that that's not what you're supposed to do, that you're supposed to be professional and buttoned up. I actually had a client years ago that I, um, parted ways with over this very topic. This was the CEO who was, Fundamentally fairly insecure. And was hiding behind that veneer of always being very professional and always presenting only in the most, buttoned up and factual way. And you know, they didn't get listened to that much. they were not a thought leader. And part of it was because they were afraid that if they brought their passion that would seem unprofessional. They would be judged. They would be criticized and they couldn't deal with that. So they kept that under wraps and It held them back in some very substantial ways. bring your passion and let other people feel it, see it, experience it. It is critical to being able to engage others. Positive emotions are contagious. Passion enthusiasm, excitement and optimism are all emotions that will help you engage your listeners and draw them to you. But that doesn't mean you have to be smiling and happy all the time. And in fact, because for the most part, those of us working in direct service nonprofits. Or helping people with some very difficult challenges in their lives. And there's a lot to be frustrated about. There's a lot to be angry about. And that can also be part of your passion. So many of the policies and structures that we have are designed to provide resources, to help people with all the things that form the necessities of life, housing, healthcare. Education jobs, safety. Healthy environment, all those things. There are programs and. Resources for helping people struggle less. But we're far from reaching the goal of every member of every community, having what they need to thrive. To not only survive and struggle through each day, but to achieve their best health, to work at a job that pays a living wage that's fulfilling and satisfying and meaningful to the person. To have housing that's affordable and safe and stable to live in a community that's safe and welcoming to have good schools for their children that have access to additional education for the adults. So they can continue to advance and do well for themselves. And their families. You can go on and on with all the things that it means For a person to be able to truly thrive and contribute to the community. Thriving. Because they're able to meet their basic needs and then some, and then they're able to fully participate in the health and wellbeing of the community. all of this is terribly important and yet most government and philanthropically funded remedies. Are aimed at barely keeping people's heads above water. And if you're frustrated by that, if you feel like no, we can do better. There are a lot of good reasons why not only should we do this, but we can do this. Let's move ourselves closer to that place where we're all thriving. Wherever your expertise lies, whatever the thing is that you focus your services on. The part of people's lives that you helped to elevate and improve and help them move closer to really thriving. If you're passionate about that larger vision and can articulate that if you can talk about how. The systems and structures you work under can be made better and why that would matter. Why that would help improve not only the lives of the people you serve, but also the whole community. If you can communicate that passion and that vision. Then you're on your way to becoming a thought leader. This goes without saying, but I'm going to say it. You got to have something fresh to bring to the conversation. You're not a thought leader unless you're thinking. fresh thoughts unless you're bringing new ways to look at a problem, new ideas about how to solve the problem. you want to be innovative and creative in your approach. At the peak of this is being able to help other people see a common problem through an uncommon frame or lens. That's when you really start to make a difference. When you can change how people think about something, then they start to think new thoughts. Because you've freed them from that rigid structure that they've gotten in the habit of thinking about the problem. And this can be incredibly valuable in policy circles. And it can feel risky sometimes to put an idea out there that seems a little radical. That seems a little extreme because it's so big, so all encompassing or so dramatic in its change. the initial reaction from many people will be, whoa, you can't do that. that's way too much. Dial it back. And part of the way you help shift the conversation is you help people see actually, no. If we look at it from this angle, the thing I just proposed is not only not radical, it's merely logical. It's obviously the solution. if you can shift their thinking with that kind of a maneuver, then all of a sudden it opens up a whole new area of discussion, a whole new open field. You've expanded the space in which a conversation about solutions can occur. ultimately, if you've got a big vision, if you've got big things you want to get done, you got to build out that space, push the boundaries back. One of the most effective ways to do that is to shift the framing, shift the lens, and make a bigger space. And then be ready to explain why when you make the space bigger, when you change that frame, that the thing you're suggesting is actually quite reasonable. following on this and connected to it all is that you have to be able to actively engage people with your ideas. And all of the things I just talked about come into play. Your passion, your energy, your ability to reframe, to help people shift their thinking. All of that is part of the process of engagement. I've talked in a couple of other episodes about using story to help engage. If you look at TED talks, Which are, some of the most engaging content out there you will notice that roughly 65% of a really effective TED talk is story. And then maybe 25% of it is logic. And only about 10% of it is credibility and proof of expertise In episode 13, I talked about using story for a very specific purpose. But there are almost infinite uses of story And they can be about your personal experience Something, your grandma said to you, when you were very young, that changed how you saw the world or an experience you had the cause you to have an insight or a stronger focus on your purpose? as long as you can bring it back to the topic at hand. Anything is fair game. The purpose of story is to engage people's emotions. Because when you do that, You draw them in, you reduce their barriers. you break down their filters that are predisposing them not to want to really listen to you. And as you have them drop those filters a little bit-- because everyone loves a good story. They get pulled in. And then you can segue to your parallel message that feeds off of that story. So all of those things of learning how to effectively engage people with your ideas is huge. Because again, part of the phrase thought leader is leader. And you're not a leader if nobody's following. Now at the same time, an effective thought leader is always listening and always learning. You don't know everything and you never will. Even about your niche. There's always going to be more to learn, one layer deeper to dig into, more insight, more analysis, more possibility. All of it is infinitely expandable. Even when you are a very well-established thought leader, part of what you're doing is engaging other thought leaders in that arena, in that general practice field or policy field, whatever you're working on. you're engaging other thought leaders, because what you want ultimately is influence. You want to change things. Why be a thought leader, if all you want is for everything to stay just the way it is. Where's the leader in that? So you want to be able to engage other thought leaders and the very best way to do that is to listen, at least as much as you talk, preferably more. And always, always be learning. Ask better questions. When you get in a room with other thought leaders in your space, oh, my goodness. What ideally is happening is that you are building off of each other, building off of each other's ideas and each other's passion and coming up with better ways, better solutions, and together thinking of things that none of you have quite thought of that exact way before, and that's when the magic really starts to happen. It also not coincidentally, when you're able to do that, that Further builds and enhances your reputation as a thought leader. When you can hold your own in a room with other thought leaders, and can help sustain the energy of that group in that conversation. That's a piece of it too. along with that, of course, you need to be unique in some way. whether it's your perspective or your ideas or your framing or analysis, a unique understanding that you bring to the problem, a fresh analysis, whatever else. But if you just sound like everybody else, then You're not unique. You're just one of the herd. And then the last thing, and I alluded to this in the beginning, is that. You have to be willing to take some risk. thought leaders frequently venture outside their comfort zone. you have to put yourself out there knowing that there will be criticism, there will be judgment, it's gonna happen. Your passion will help with this because if you tap back into your passion for your vision, for what needs to be done, for why this matters so much to you, that will give you the rocket fuel you need to go out there and say, You know what? I don't care. I don't care if somebody else thinks that this is too bold, too bold, too. Too. Pushy to whatever. And by the way, that is one of the most common ways that innovation tries to get pushed down, pushed back by people who are being taken out of their comfort zone by your suggestion that they think about something differently or become more ambitious than they currently are. That we all stretch together to do something bigger and better than what we've got now, that's uncomfortable for a lot of people. And rather than acknowledge their discomfort and look within and say, gosh, that's really stretching my comfort zone. Let me take a look at that. I wonder what that means. They don't do that. Instead, they go, argh. That heretic over there is saying terrible things, they're saying whatever, and we have to criticize that because that scares us. So understand, it isn't about you. That's probably one of the most important things to get in all of this, in any kind of influence building, in any kind of advocacy work, and certainly in thought leadership work, that while it is very much about you in the sense of you are bringing you. You are bringing your passion, your vision, your unique framing, your unique analysis and understanding of the whole problem and your ideas about how to make it better and your vision for what better looks like when we really stretch. That's all you, but you're not doing this for the likes, for the ego boost for the little, dopamine hit that you get from the Facebook likes or whatever, those will happen or they won't, but that's not why you're doing this. You're doing this because you care about making the world a better place. You care about really moving the needle on this stuff. And when you're focused on that vision, when you're focused on what's possible, all those little concerns of the ego of, Oh, I don't know. Will they like me? will they say mean things? Will they criticize me? Will they judge me? Yes, they will. Some will. So what? Those aren't your audience. Nevermind them. You're looking for people who are going to resonate with your ideas and help you make something happen. when you stay focused on that, it becomes much easier to quiet the little fears of the ego that are trying to keep you staying small and playing safe. And say, yeah, yeah, hush up. I hear you. I know you're there. you go sit down. Play in the corner because we've got bigger fish to fry over here and I need you out of my way. But, understand that that will be a challenge if you let your passion guide you, if you let your vision guide you, you'll be just fine. those are the essential ingredients for establishing yourself as a thought leader. you need to know your niche and be an expert in that niche. You need to be able to think bigger picture beyond your organization to a systems and architecture and structure kind of world where you're looking at changing systems. You must bring your passion and you need to be innovative, creative, bring fresh solutions, fresh framing, help people think about things in new ways from new angles. You need to be able to actively engage people with those ideas, always be listening, always be learning, especially from other thought leaders and be willing to take some risk. Put yourself out there and trust that when you do that in service of a greater vision, good things will happen. Remember that becoming a thought leader is a process and you're already part way there. You already have a whole bunch of expertise. And I'm willing to bet that you also have a bunch of ideas about how things ought to be. What would make things better? How could systems operate in ways? if you said, What if we didn't have all these, things that have been this way forever that don't really work that Well, for the people we serve or for our organization or any service provider for that matter. But that's kind of how things got built. what if it wasn't that way? What if we actually didn't built from the ground up, something that really worked. If you're thinking those kind of thoughts on a regular basis, about even one part of the work that you do, then you already have the makings of a thought leader. The rest of it is just taking these other principles and being intentional and consistent about developing them and putting the effort in over time. As I said before, you don't just wake up one day and say, okay, I'm going to be a thought leader. And then by next week, you've got it done. This is a process. But along the way, what you will discover is as you build out on each of these ingredients, you're going to discover that your influence will already be growing, that you will be engaging people more effectively, including decision makers. This will only help your advocacy work. And along the way, eventually you'll find that you have become a thought leader. So set your intention, make your plan. And one thing you can do today is assess where you are on each of these major ingredients and then identify just one thing that you'd like to work on and then go do it. Rinse and repeat until you've moved yourself forward on all of the different ingredients. It's very doable. It just takes intentionality and consistency. Please, let me know how it goes. I am so excited for your journey toward becoming a thought leader or improving your status as a thought leader in process. And I would love to hear your story and how it's going. You can reach out to me on the podcast website, Nonprofit power podcast.com. or you can find me on LinkedIn at the nonprofit power podcast. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you in the next episode.