7-step framework developed by the Thought Leadership Lab

The journey to Thought Leadership

Many of us here are the GSB have had leadership experience in the past and are aspiring to grow and become influential leaders in the future. It’s strange that we have not been talking about thought leadership as an essential part of becoming leaders.

This week in class we had Denise Brosseau and Zoe Duning, both GSB Class of ’93. Denise, which is the CEO of the Though Leadership Lab, presented a framework to discover, grow and implement thought leadership as individuals. Zoe shared her personal story, her 18 year journey to repeal the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy, the official United States policy on military service by LGBT’s.

I find the two paths to assuming thought leadership very similar to the paths a leader must take in order to consolidate his position. The first, is finding something one cares deeply about and is passionate and committed to. It is very helpful if one also has expertise in this space but that is not a must have, many times our passion is to make a change to something that is completely out of our scope. This leads us to the second path to thought leadership, which is simply taking the lead out of circumstance. It can either be that we care so much about a wrong we see, perhaps we know someone close that was hurt or sometimes we might just have no other choice than to step up and speak up.

That’s exactly what happened to Zoe, who was close to graduating from the GSB when deciding, at the last moment, to speak in a rally in San-Francisco. The rally was targeted at the Clinton administration, that went back on its pre election promise to let gays serve in the military. Zoe, a Navy officer and a lesbian, felt that she had to speak up. in her own words, “If not me than who?”.

Zoe was successful in changing the policy and on July. 22, 2011 president Obama signed the certification and service members no longer needed to hide who they are. It took her 18 years.

Zoe Duning standing to the left of president Obama

Zoe, like many other leaders, did not ask for to be in an 18 year quest to change the world. She did not ask to be dragged through courts and expose her personal life. It was her passion and a feeling that she can no longer stand on the side lines that pushed her to act. As Zoe said “The way I got my courage to act was that the idea of not acting is more unbearable than the idea of acting”. Many of us, even when we are the top professionals in our field, do not feel comfortable to start the journey to becoming a thought leader. We see it as self-promoting and non-authentic. A lesson from Zoe’s story is that the sacrifices she made and the movement she led actually changed many people’s personal life and changed how the world works, now if that’s not the definition of leadership I don’t know what is.

Becoming a thought leader can be made simpler by following the next seven steps:

1. Find your driving passion: As some class mates shared, the journey to thought leadership must start with a passion to an idea — that aligns with the first step in the seven step framework developed by the Thought Leadership Lab, Finding your driving passion, identifying a future you are passionate about and committed to.
2. Build your ripples of influence. Select a few paths through which you are going to reach out and impact your audience. One of the techniques is being a curator of information. Defining where you stand on certain core topics.
3. Activate your advocates — who is going to come with me? Building a tribe in order to change the world. Identifying and working together with allies in order to grow your influence and impact. It is very important to have specific ideas regarding something you care about not only vague ones in order to make people care. What is the blue print or plan of what I want people to do after they believe me?
4. Put I on the line — step into the spot light. Risk reputation for your vision. What we fear — will others think I’m showing of? Will I be seen as self-promoting? Biggest lesson is that people are credible when they advocate for something they are passionate about and for something they care for.
5. Codifying your lessons learned. Distill your know how into a replicable model that can be used by you and your advocates to grow and scale.
6. Put yourself on shout — get your ideas out there to as many people that might be impacted and swayed by them. This is a good time to engage with your critics in order to get more point of view and angles.
7. Incite a revolution/evolution. How do you best pass the baton, teach others and make a tangible change.

I was inspired by Zoe’s story. I also understand that real change and impact takes time just like Zoe’s 18 year journey. Zoe said that thought leadership is about how to get people to help you get what you want. Denise wants us to remember that thought leadership is not about being known but it is being known for making a difference.

We’re all going out into the world now, hopeful to make a difference and impact our organizations, countries and people — I always believed that true leadership is measured in the field and by our actions and I hope that Denise’s frameworks and Zoe’s inspirational story would serve us as tools in our own journeys.