How to write like a thought leader

Get your big ideas out of your head and into the hearts and minds of others.

 

Every business has potential thought leaders with wisdom and perspectives to share.

And you might be one of them.

Thought leadership articles are a great way to share your expertise. They help you build trust and credibility in your business, strengthen relationships and show your human side. Your thought leadership content can help people make better decisions and better understand what you stand for. You can inform, educate or entertain by expressing your unique point of view.

You might even change some minds.

Thought leadership content should bring out the human essence behind your ideas – the opinions, stories and genuine experience. But getting all of that onto the page requires a fair bit of thinking and reflection – something busy subject matter experts rarely have time for.

However, here’s the inconvenient truth: if you wait for a brilliant idea to strike, plus enough time to think deeply about it, you’ll never write that article.

So here are a few simple steps to help you get inspired, start writing, save time – and have fun in the process.

 

1. Set your tone and get clear on your goal

Think about the thought leaders you follow. What do you like about how they write – not just what they write? Are they warm and chatty? Or more like a spiky firestarter? Are they humble and down to earth, sharing their missteps with endearing honesty? Or are they bold, brave big-thinkers?

I subscribe to Ann Handley’s newsletter partly because reading it feels like a conversation with a good, supportive friend. That’s her tone.

If you like her tone too, subscribe to Ann’s newsletter here

Decide what you want your tone to be, and make sure it aligns with your personality – otherwise it will feel off and be much harder to write.

Then decide why you actually want to write this thing. Is it to educate, inform, entertain or persuade?

2. Be original and take a stand

Most people think thought leadership should share an opinion, even if (perhaps especially if) it’s controversial. Over two-thirds of respondents to SurveyMonkey’s Thought Leadership Report said they expect thought leadership content to ‘challenge the way they think.’

Many people also think you need to come up with a novel idea or stance to stand out in a sea of thought leaders, attract an audience for your ideas and start a conversation. Especially if you don’t have bazillions of TED Talk-inspired social media followers.

Is there really such a thing as an original idea? That’s probably another blog for another time. But for now let’s take the pressure off to be truly original.

Here are a few not-so-original frameworks to help you come up with a new angle on a common challenge or opportunity. Just avoid rehashing existing knowledge in the Google universe – you need to add your own perspective.

• Bust a myth. Here’s a best practice concept/ assumption that doesn’t work/ isn’t true. What’s an outdated belief in your sector? How can you shake up the status quo? Can you position your ideas as counterintuitive?
• Get new research. Run a poll, or analyse internal or external data. Then apply your own insights to find an original thread.
• Share a framework. Solve a common problem you audience deals with. Keep it simple and memorable.
• Crystal-ball gaze. Share your perspective on an industry trend. If your business runs webinars, turn them into written content by tapping the speakers for diverse forecasts.
• Reflect on a project. What worked, what didn’t work, what surprised you, what’s the one lesson you’ll take into the next thing?

Great ideas are rarely available when you need them most. So have a pipeline of thought leadership topic starters. Collect ideas from unexpected places – the twisted logic of a magazine headline, or a note from when a client revealed a hidden cost or surprising truth.

Jay Acunzo isn’t afraid to take a stand. 

3. Plan your structure

Once you have your topic, it’s time plan it out. On paper, with a pen. Just try it.

Lead with the need. Why should the audience care about this revelation? What’s the one thing you want them to remember? Pop that ‘need’ in the middle of your page and then draw spokes out to a number of ideas to support your argument.

Each of those spoked ideas becomes a paragraph or two. And each paragraph needs to build on the previous, brick by useful brick.

Think about how you can explain your ideas in a way that helps your reader, instead of serving your own purposes in a thinly disguised sales pitch. Look for opportunities to relate each supporting point back to your own personal experience or expertise – ask yourself, what is it like? That can help you find an analogy or story that will bring it to life.

And your thought leadership content doesn’t need to be a long written piece. Maybe it’s an infographic. Why not?

Thought leadership content can be visual or a narrative. As long as it makes the reader think.

4. Find the right tools to improve your writing

Now you can start writing. Finally! After all this thinking and planning, the words should come fairly easily. Remember your tone. Simplify any complex ideas with clear, jargon-free language. Be concise, with everyday language, short sentences and easy-to-follow structures to make your writing accessible.

You also want it to be engaging, maybe even compelling. Stories will give your big ideas some substance. Even if you’re writing a research-based opinion piece, go beyond the dry data to share the real-life stories behind the numbers.

Include verbatim responses from surveys or relate it to a universal truth.

That’s what sets you apart from all that GPT-generated content.

Korn Ferry CEO Gary Burnison always starts his emails with a personal anecdote.

5. Make your CTA a call to arms

Make sure your story doesn’t fizzle out at the end – circle back to the promise you made in your opening statement. Reinforce your primary argument. Check you’ve made one thing clear: what’s the change you seek, and why is it so important?

You can finish with a question or invite feedback – treat this story as a conversation starter.

 

6. Be consistent

Finally, once your thought leadership is published and grabbing engagement, move onto the next! Keep writing, keep publishing and plan your content to align with your personal or business goals.

Want to turn your team into trusted through leaders? Share this article and download our ultimate thought leadership toolkit now. 

Of course, if that all feels too hard, you can commission a ghost writer to help you get those ideas out of your head and into the hearts and minds of others. That’s just one of the many things we do at Writers. Ready to go that route? Drop us a line.