What are your top professional development goals as a thought leader?
As a thought leader, you have the opportunity and responsibility to share your insights, ideas, and expertise with your audience and industry. But how do you keep growing and improving as a thought leader? What are the key professional development goals that you should pursue to enhance your credibility, impact, and value? In this article, we will explore some of the top professional development goals that you can set for yourself as a thought leader and how to achieve them.
-
Catherine McDonaldLean Business Consultant | Leadership & Executive Coach | LinkedIn Top Voice| Lean Solutions Podcast Co-Host
-
Suzette DiMascio, CHE CMCE CPCSpecialty Pharmacy I Passionate Patient Advocate I Rare Disease I Market Access I Digital Health I Private Equity I…
-
Tom GambleESSEC Business School/Council on Business & Society
One of the most important goals for any thought leader is to expand your network and connect with other influencers, experts, and potential collaborators in your field. Networking can help you gain exposure, learn from others, find new opportunities, and create synergies. To expand your network, you can use various strategies, such as attending events, joining online communities, reaching out to people via email or social media, and asking for introductions or referrals. You can also offer value to your network by sharing your content, providing feedback, endorsing others, and making introductions.
-
There is a huge difference between the size of my network and the quality of it. I reject most of the invitations to connect on LinkedIn because they're from solicitors who want to sell me something. Expanding your network for the sake of expansion is pointless. I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week. When I request a connection with someone, it's because I want to learn from them; and when someone wants to learn from me, I welcome the connection. Then, as we learn from each other and share what we're learning with our followers, we are able to form deeper connections. We get to know each other better as humans, and when opportunities arise for referrals and/or collaborations, the recommendations are vetted and legit.
Another essential goal for a thought leader is to update your skills and stay on top of the latest trends, developments, and best practices in your industry. Updating your skills can help you maintain your relevance, credibility, and authority as a thought leader and provide more value to your audience. To update your skills, you can enroll in courses, certifications, or programs that are relevant to your field, read books, blogs, or journals, listen to podcasts or webinars, and participate in workshops or masterminds. You can also seek feedback from your peers, mentors, or clients and identify your strengths and areas for improvement.
A third key goal for a thought leader is to create more content and showcase your expertise, insights, and opinions to your audience and industry. Creating more content can help you build your personal brand, increase your visibility, attract more followers, and establish your thought leadership. To create more content, you can use different formats and channels, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, newsletters, ebooks, or white papers, and distribute them on your website, social media, email, or other platforms. You can also repurpose your existing content into different formats and update them regularly.
-
I'd add here (and maybe even as the bedrock of your thought leadership production), two things: i) quality of prose/language used and especially the use of correct grammar and punctuation. Great reads always pay attention to flow and detail, not forgetting that punctuation in a text is the equivalent of SFX in cinema. It can help the reader pause, take breath in the inner voice, pick up speed and even inspire if done correctly! And ii) Setting up a process that includes crucial quality checks before sign off and creating a publishing schedule to give you vision and a regular goal, using the schedule and colour-coding to highlight "best reads" and content that can be dove-tailed into other content-based deliverables.
A fourth important goal for a thought leader is to collaborate with others and leverage their skills, resources, and networks to amplify your impact and reach. Collaborating with others can help you create more value, diversity, and innovation in your content, products, or services, and expand your audience and influence. To collaborate with others, you can look for opportunities to co-create content, co-host events, co-deliver programs, or co-author books with other thought leaders, experts, or influencers in your field or related fields. You can also join or form alliances, partnerships, or communities with others who share your vision, values, or goals.
-
In my opinion, being able to collaborate with others that are leaders in the industry not only is enlightening to the audience, many times you find your gain more insight then you had expected. I find this often when I speak at conferences on a panel. We come together as a group of individuals in the same industry, however, our perspectives and the road we have traveled on to get to that point in our careers is vastly different, and because of the difference, our shared collaboration, enlightens the audience, as well as ourselves 😊
A fifth vital goal for a thought leader is to evaluate your results and measure your progress and impact as a thought leader. Evaluating your results can help you identify what is working and what is not, what are the gaps and opportunities, and what are the areas for improvement or growth. To evaluate your results, you can use various metrics and tools, such as analytics, surveys, feedback, testimonials, or case studies, and track them over time. You can also set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals and objectives for your thought leadership activities and review them regularly.
-
All of these are good recommendations and good goals to set. I would also add ( possibly to the top of the list) the need to develop self-awareness, and emotional intelligence in general. Emotional intelligence is key to professional development and the goal is not to hit targets but to continuously improve.
Rate this article
More relevant reading
-
Personal BrandingHere's how you can become a thought leader in your field as a mid-career professional.
-
Digital StrategyWhat do you do if you want to expand your network in digital strategy by joining professional organizations?
-
Social MediaWhat do you do if you're seeking industry mentors and advisors through social media?
-
Practice ManagementWhat do you do if your social media presence is not boosting your career prospects in Practice Management?