CareerZ Cast Guide to Thought Leadership in Technology

Inspiring Action and Shaping the Future

The ability to inspire others to embrace a vision and act on it is what we refer to as Thought Leadership. It is more than having good ideas or telling good stories, it requires you to be a credible advocate who does more than just talking. It requires you to be credible, connected, trusted, respected.

This post discusses the steps to develop and exercise leadership in ideas and is heavily underscored by my own experience and practice, so it might be different from the generic text you find on the web.

A Catalyst for Change That is also More Relevant Today

The act of sharing innovative ideas, insights, and expertise to inspire and influence others, has always been important, but its significance has increased in today’s information-saturated world.

In an era where attention is scarce, thought leadership serves as focusing lens and guiding light. Leaders provide clarity, offer unique perspectives, and challenge conventional thinking. Their ability to articulate complex ideas in a compelling manner not only focuses attention but also build trust and credibility across industries, organizations, and individual lives.

For individuals, thought leadership can accelerate careers advancements, open doors to new opportunities, and expand networks. For organizations, it is a strategic advantage that attracts top talent, differentiates them from following competition, and fosters brand recognition and customer loyalty.

Qualities of Effective Thought Leaders

Effective thought leaders share several key characteristics (and do not share others that are prevalent):

• Deep Expertise: They are passionate about their field and possess a profound understanding of the subject matter. They continuously learn, explore new trends, and fuel their creativity with intellectual curiosity. Don’t be the decision maker developing strong “opinions” on subjects you don’t understand, which undermines organizational trust.
• Masterful Communication: They articulate ideas clearly and concisely, whether through writing, speaking, or social media. They engage audiences with compelling narratives and tailor their message to resonate with their target audience beyond recurrent update communications.
• Authenticity and Optimism: They are genuine, optimistic, and unafraid to take risks, challenge norms, or voice unpopular opinions. Their integrity and willingness to tackle challenges with incomplete information builds trust and makes their message more impactful. A Thought Leader must put collective interest above their own, which becomes difficult the higher in the hierarchy you get to.

Marcio’s Strategies for Cultivating Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership is a set of skills you can develop and hone. Here is my approach:

1. Develop Credible Expertise: To be a credible thought leader, you need to be and be perceived as a domain expert. Deepen your knowledge through continuous learning, research, and practice. A more advanced and sustainable way of doing that is serving as an aggregation channel, where you dedicate yourself to represent the collective knowledge of a team or community (your credibility relies on your leadership, not on your personal knowledge). In both cases, stay abreast of the latest trends and developments, and seek out opportunities to expand your expertise.
2. Share Generously, Network: Don’t hoard information or insights. Share broadly through writing, speaking, inserting in day-to-day conversations. This builds you reputation and provides valuable early feedback. You learn through interaction, recruit support for your idea, practice and perfect the story. Connect with other thought leaders in your field to build a strong network and expand your reach and opportunities.
3. Understand: Technology adoption is not linear: Study and incorporate the concepts explored in “Crossing the Chasm” (Geoffrey Moore), “Innovator’s Dilemma” (Clayton Christensen), “Gartner’s Hype Cycle”. A quote that is often attributed to Bill Gates: “We overestimate the change that will occur in the next 2 years and underestimate the change in the next 10”. Don’t be afraid of being a contrarian (your leadership is most important when the consensus is wrong and you have the different correct vision).
4. Master Storytelling: This is not just for slide presentations. Practice storytelling in all forms and incorporate it to your life to create common vision and compel self, people, teams, organizations, companies, industries to make bold decisions that shape the future. Creating vision (or making inspiring predictions) is an art. Your predictions don’t need to be 100% accurate, but they need to be directionally correct and must be able to trigger the correct decisions.
5. Be Consistent: Thought leadership is not a one-time event; it is an ongoing process. Consistently share insights, engage with your audience, and stay true to your values. Consistency builds trust and reinforces your position as a thought leader.

Real-World Examples

Though I am cherrypicking predictions that turned out to be true and instances where I was actually able to have an industry impact and accelerate the adoption of some technology, here are some real examples of thought leadership artifacts.

• Linux is the future platform for embedded systems (1990’s). I was an early contributor to the Linux Kernel and had interest in accelerating the adoption of Open Source models in server and embedded software development. Most of the media attention then was on Linux vs. Windows (which proved irrelevant). Thirty years later, Cisco and Arista’s networking equipment, Android and Apple mobile phones, Internet data centers run on Open Source platforms. Linux Journal, November 2000 – Linux and Networking – The Next Revolution
• Digital Telephony will transform call centers and customer engagement (2013). I was working on business solutions for video-conferencing and call centers. Most of the industry focus when it came to the nascent WebRTC technology was on how it would disrupt phone carriers (it didn’t). I was evangelizing the impact of WebRTC and digital telephony would happen in the service provider call centers, which is a reality today. WebRTC World 2013 – Daitan Group talks the future of WebRTC.
• Corporate IT and Service Provide investments are shifting to the edge (2019). After helping to create a market and building management solutions for large data centers for two decades, I had shifted my focus to developing solutions for the network edge and wanted to create awareness in the industry. Fierce Telecom 2019 – Opengear tunes up Out-of-Band.
• LLM AI Chatbots are the future of customer support (2020). I led the team responsible for Technology in consumer support. While the company had a “AI-First” stated strategy for almost a decade, leveraging of LLM to solve problems was very slow. Our central engineering partners where skeptical about chatbots. There were fragmented efforts across the company on point solutions. I successfully evangelized consolidation of efforts in customer support (but failed turning my company into a market leader) two years before OpenAI disrupted the market by launching ChatGPT.

Call to Action

Thought Leadership is a lifelong pursuit. You can’t just “decide” to become a thought leader, but you can take the next steps. Share this post with two colleagues who might find it valuable and let’s shape the future together.

About the author

Circumstances pushed me to exercise Thought Leadership early, before I had an understanding of what it was. I combine the intuition of doing it with the later observation of dynamics of decision-making in large organizations and industry groups to discuss thought leadership as a practice. I occasionally engage as a consultant with corporations or as career coach with organizational leaders.