Thought Leader

About Thought Leader

Thought leader is a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinklets).

Thought leadership is an increasingly vital driver of business success.^{[citation needed]} The term was first coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy & Business. The term was used to designate interview subjects for that magazine who had contributed new thoughts to business. Among the first "thought leaders," were British management thinker, Charles Handy, who advanced the idea of a "portfolio worker" and the "Shamrock Organization", Stanford economist Paul Romer, Mitsubishi president, Minoru Makihara, and University of Michigan strategist, C.K. Prahalad, author of a number of well known works in corporate strategy including "The Core Competence of the Corporation" (Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1990); and his co-author, Gary Hamel, a professor at the London Business School. Since that time, the term has spread from business to other disciplines and has come to mean someone who enlivens old processes with new ideas. As a result, there are thought leaders in the sciences, humanities and even in government.

This term can also be applied to an applied research Center of Excellence, or company - often a small business that integrates professional ethics with highly-effective leadership development.^[1]

According to commentators such as Elise Bauer, a distinguishing characteristic of a thought leader is "the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates."^[2]

Leadership is deliberately causing people-driven actions in a planned way to accomplish the leader's agenda.

—Phil Crosby, ^[3]

Some visions of thought leaders are "to fuel the evolution of leaders who choose to contribute to sustaining life (body, mind and spirit) in ourselves, our organizations, and our communities". With the belief "that leadership development is rooted in personal development & organizational transformation is rooted in individual transformation.^[4]

Thought leadership is also an emerging discipline in its own right. Our ability to understand its core practices, then to effectively apply them, are the keys to positioning ourselves and our companies for next level growth.^[5]