It seems like a bit of a basic question to be asking, especially if, like me, you've been involved in this space for more than two decades. Yet it's surprising just how slippery a term thought leadership is. It's one of those concepts that you come across a lot in business, like innovation, digital transformation, culture or purpose, that eludes easy definition.

Over the years, I have been asked many times how I define thought leadership. Although I think I've been largely consistent in what I say, my answer probably has evolved over time and varied a bit depending on the person to whom I'm talking. I'm also very aware that others might have a different opinion from me and that there is no universally agreed definition.

This question of definition came up again recently because I've just launched a new business in this space, called Exhibit B Partners, together with my colleague James Watson. In our new venture, we help agencies, publishers and other companies build and scale their thought leadership offerings, so it's kind of important that we have a consistent definition of what those offerings are. Otherwise we might have a view of the problem we're trying to solve that is different from our clients.

First, though, it's worth stepping back to think about why thought leadership is such a difficult term to define. The main problem is that it is so widely misused. Most of the content that is labelled thought leadership (usually by the people who produced it) fails to meet a basic threshold of quality that is required. It's bandied about because it sounds good and adds a veneer of prestige to a piece of otherwise unremarkable piece of content. It's the marketing equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig.

The misuse and overuse of the term thought leadership is one reason why many people dislike it. I also have reservations about it, but I sense we're stuck with it as I've yet to come across another name that is a suitable replacement. So, if we genuinely want the term to be useful, then we need some level of agreement about what it represents. There will be different views on this, but my sense is that a piece of thought leadership needs to have all of the following in order to qualify:

1. It's distinctive. Contrary to what many people say, I don't think thought leadership needs to be wholly original. The audience doesn't really care that you've had a brand new idea because that probably doesn't solve their more pressing problems. And good thought leadership should, first and foremost, be focused on the audience need, not intellectual showmanship. But while your ideas don't need to be wholly original, they do need to be distinctive. They have to be representative of your brand and easily associated with it, and they need to be memorable and creative.
2. It's backed by research. Distinctive thinking needs fresh inputs, and that means research is essential. Surveys have been the mainstay of corporate thought leadership for decades, and they are certainly useful. But they're not the be-all and end-all - there are plenty of other research inputs that will work, from interviews to secondary data analysis. And just because something has a survey in it doesn't mean that it's thought leadership. There is plenty of poor B2B content based on surveys that just plays back findings without adding any real insight or value.
3. It influences the audience. There's a big difference between content that informs and content that influences. The former cannot be thought leadership, whereas the latter can. Your job as a thought leadership producer is to create messages and narratives that change the audience's perspective, and get them to think or act differently as a result of what you have communicated. Your audience may be clients, the media, policy-makers or investors. It doesn't really matter so long as what you say resonates and causes them to react in some way.
4. It has a commercial or brand impact. There's no point producing thought leadership if you don't have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. It shouldn't exist as a vanity exercise. There has to be a clear commercial or brand objective behind it that is specific and, ideally, measurable. Patience is often required. The real benefits of thought leadership do not come overnight. It often takes many months for the investment to trickle down into commercial impact, given the length of many B2B sales cycles. It's also often very difficult to connect thought leadership with business outcomes. But if commercial teams are on board, and leadership supports your efforts, you know you're on the right track because they wouldn't be if they didn't see the value.

So there you go. Those are the characteristics that matter in my opinion. Put that all together and you get a definition of thought leadership that goes something like:

"Distinctive, research-based content that influences audiences and has a positive brand or commercial impact."

Let me know if you agree or disagree with my definition.

‍