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Thought leadership is a frequently used business term for content creation where you have specific expertise—often applied to forward-looking content matching new business opportunities. 

At the core of thought leadership is the objective to earn recognition for your expertise or authority. Before defining which themes to pursue, it is worthwhile to set an ambition for how many you can realistically pursue in parallel. It is a job that starts by asking what the maximum number of areas an external audience would rank you as an expert in is. 

👨🏻‍🎓 What high school can teach us about our thought leadership potential 

Rewind ⏪ to your high school years and reflect on what you were great at: 

• Best in academic subjects – math, physics, biology, chemistry, social sciences, geography, and history. 
• Best in languages – native, parent’s language, first foreign, second foreign.  
• Best in sports – athletics, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, golf, tennis, skiing. 
• Best in arts – playing the guitar, trombone, drums, piano, painting, writing 
• Most popular – easy going, good looking, nice clothes, access to cars and real estate. 
• Great at staying in shape – running, swimming, yoga, workouts, eating healthy.

Ask yourself how many of the areas above your high school peers recognized you for. Was it easiest to get recognized within one of the broad categories, or did it work to pick one field in each area? 

👩🏻‍🎨👨🏻‍🍳🕵🏼 Entering thought leadership territory after 10,000 hours 

Fast forward to a point in your career when you are an authority in your field of expertise. You have invested the magic 10,000 hours to become great at something. You are well known in your company for your expertise. The growth of your expertise comes from changing roles and gaining practical experience. 

🖍️ At this stage, your expertise is more profound and narrower than where you stood out in high school, with the first pivot taking place with the choice of your university studies and the second at your first professional roles. 

Your personal brand recognition outside your company varies substantially with the amount of your external exposure from face-to-face and virtual interactions with customers and partners. The combination of solid subject matter expertise and strong external networks is precious for thought leadership initiatives, and you need both strengths to be successful. 

🗂️ Mid-career professionals are boxed in by their accomplishments 

By the time you have reached the mid-point of your career, your colleagues have put high-level labels on you. Both for what you are and what you are not and often covering a few of the fields below. 

• Business or technology 
• Sales or R&D/Operations 
• Delegating or micro-managing 
• Strategic or tactical bias
• Building new or optimizing current businesses
• Local/regional or global work and cultural experience
• Industry/company lifer or a roaming between companies. 

🏷️ The label you get stems from when you first met a person and stays for a very long time. Your reputation varies between groups depending on when you got to know them. This reality is another good starting point for what you are and can be associated with credibly, both as a person and as a company. 

🧗🏻 Limitations set by the efforts required to maintain thought leadership status 

Thought leadership is dynamic, and you have to invest time to remain relevant at the top as time goes by. Adding one new theme to your thought leadership aspiration can be challenging, even when dropping an existing one. 

Experienced thought leaders understand how many areas they realistically can pursue and double down their efforts in these areas. Be suspicious about anyone claiming that thought leadership matches every new buzzword. 

Bottom line: Combine the insights in this post, and you will see that the number of thought leadership areas you, as a company or as a person, can pursue is very small. I see an upper limit in the three-to-five window, where brand recognition rather than actual expertise should guide your ambition. 

Questions to ask yourself and your team 

1. In which areas do we have leading-edge expertise today? 
2. How well have we articulated themes and topics where we aspire to be thought leaders? 
3. Can we back up our ambitions with primary or customer research? 
4. Do we have people recognized externally as thought leaders? 
5. How many thought leadership development initiatives can we run and fund in parallel? 

Additional reading suggestions 

• What it really means (and takes) to become a thought leader [ARTICLE] – by Fran Biderman-Gross at Advantages
• The complete guide to becoming an authentic thought leader [BLOGPOST] – by Chima Mmeje, MOZ
• What it really takes to be a thought leader [BLOGPOST] – by Sam Tetrault, Speakerflow 
• 11 actions to take today if you want to become a thought leader [ARTICLE] – by an exp[ert panel at Forbes
• Becoming a Thought Leader: How to build Thought Leadership and be the go-to in your field. [BLOGPOST] – by Adam Petrilli