Are you and your clients engaging in thought leadership….or just content marketing? Mads is joined by guest and crisis communications expert Jon Goldberg to talk about this over-used phrase, and how we might shift into “thoughtful leadership.”
Follow Us
LinkedIn: 212 Communications
Instagram: @NotYourParentsPR @MarlaRose__ @MadsCaldwell
That's all for now!
Follow Us:
LinkedIn: 212 Communications
Instagram: @notyourparentspr, @MarlaRose__ @MadsCaldwell
Are you and your clients engaging in thought leadership….or just content marketing? Mads is joined by guest and crisis communications expert Jon Goldberg to talk about this over-used phrase, and how we might shift into “thoughtful leadership.”
Follow Us
LinkedIn: 212 Communications
Instagram: @NotYourParentsPR @MarlaRose__ @MadsCaldwell
That's all for now!
Follow Us:
LinkedIn: 212 Communications
Instagram: @notyourparentspr, @MarlaRose__ @MadsCaldwell
Hi everyone, Welcome back to Not your Parents PR. This is Mads, and while I am typically queen of the solo 10-minute episode, I'm honored to have a guest with me today. The SparkNotes bio is that John is a C-suite advisor on reputation, risk and crisis management. He also helps to mitigate corporate and personal blunders and restore reputation and trust. I have pulled John into situations with clients and I like working with him because he answers his phone and he's calm in the storm. John Goldberg, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks for having me. And yeah, I will say answering the phone, showing up, is central to the kind of work I do, so thank you for acknowledging it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we crossed paths yet again recently, this time on LinkedIn, and we were exchanging some comments around this little known phrase, said in jest, called thought leadership, and I think that the general consensus between us is that it's sadly become an overused phrase. So I'm curious just to have a little discussion around it and I thought maybe a good starting place is what do you think people think thought leadership is today?
Speaker 2:place is what do you think people think thought leadership is today? You know, what I see is, when people talk about being thought leaders, what they are really describing is simply a combination of content marketing and a little bit of SEO, or a lot of SEO in some cases. It is how can we get our thoughts, opinions, ideas out in front of the masses in ways that will get us noted and noticed higher up in the search engine results and organic results and get us some recognition in the marketplace. The problem with that approach to thought leadership is that everyone can do it to thought leadership is that everyone can do it. Anyone with a keyboard, a broadband connection and something to say is now able to declare themselves a thought leader. And if everyone's a thought leader, nobody's a leader.
Speaker 1:Right, so you were saying that basically anyone with a keyboard can be a thought leader now because it's content, it's regular content, it's content on specific strategic topics, it's downloadables. These are all actually, in my opinion, great and important, and also content marketing, not exactly thought leadership and you wrote a piece like five years ago which has obviously not picked up the speed it needs to. It was too ahead of the game and the piece was called Thoughtful Leadership and I love that title so much. I'm a proponent of the idea that your mess is your message. We should get comfortable getting vulnerable in our leadership and in our humanity, showing our humanity at work, humaning out loud, and we should have the courage to express ourselves in these forums like a LinkedIn. I'd love for you to just talk a little bit about what are some ways we might shift from thought leadership, aka watered down content marketing, to thoughtful leadership.
Speaker 2:First, I think we need to redefine what is now called thought leadership to do what it says on the tin, if you will. Content marketing, sharing your expertise, sharing your ideas, helping others is noble. It's stuff we all need to be doing and it's all worth doing, but it's not leadership. And the difference for me, thought leadership is I sometimes joke about this, but it's simply become a way to tell people that your thoughts are better than their thoughts, without being punched in the face. You're not really adding to a body of knowledge, you're just echoing.
Speaker 2:Thoughtful leadership involves some specific behaviors. Leaders don't need to declare themselves leaders, because it is their behavior. Their actions give it away, and that's the way it should be here. So what's a thoughtful leader? Thoughtful leader, someone who is engaging in thoughtful leadership is someone who defines issues, defines the issues that are critical and relevant to their stakeholders, to their market, to their industry, whatever it is, particularly those that are not being addressed, that are critical and relevant to their stakeholders, to their market, to their industry, whatever it is, particularly those that are not being addressed, that are not yet being talked about, and those issues need to be as relevant to their customers and other stakeholders as they are to the organization itself, if not more so.
Speaker 2:Someone who's engaged in thoughtful leadership makes it a point to own the data and the evidence that substantiates this issue and becomes the source of this data and insight for the media and others. People who engage in thoughtful leadership and this is a big one for me they recognize that they don't have to solve every problem. They rather should be seen as the convener, someone who is marshalling others, other experts, other executives, other CEOs, academics, people with mutual interest in this issue or topic who are in their orbit. Someone who has the influence to marshal all of these voices and all of these brains and all get them working together to address this. And finally, thoughtful leaders lead the dialogue on an issue, but they don't monopolize it. You have to be comfortable sharing the spotlight because always vying for attention, as you know, in many cases, the typical thought leader, the blog author, the LinkedIn poster today, you know they often create this flavor of you know I'm here because I'm being an expert.
Speaker 1:Look at me, look at me.
Speaker 2:Look at me. Look at me. It's very commercial, always vying for attention. Attention yourself signals that you're doing it for you, for the recognition, for the marketing value, rather than to drive or, more to the point, to lead change. It's all about the behavior, it's not the words you put on paper.
Speaker 1:That's interesting and I can appreciate all of that. I love the idea that a thought leader doesn't have to have the solution, but it's often the vessel or the convener, the connector. I would challenge the point of being a leader. I think that it's important to have a mix of our expertise and our own human experience. So the only thing that is unique to us, for most of us, is going to be like our ourselves and our experiences, and I think that is the special sauce that anyone can bring to a space of leadership. That pairing, that magical pairing of your knowledge.
Speaker 1:And a missing piece to thought leadership today is often the connection with your audience or your publics. Um, if we'll get into public relations speak, a big component of connecting with your audience is that vulnerability, the human experience, the failure, the, the crash and burn and then the lesson learned as a result, because so few people are going to, are going to be able to connect with someone who's only posting their success stories or glamour shots. So, while I understand the point and agree largely with the point about the me, me, me posts, I also think that showing a taste of who we are in our real lives is an important connection point for audiences specific to the platform of LinkedIn, but I would argue anywhere.
Speaker 1:If someone's taking the stage. I want to know that they spilled coffee on their blazer. I think that's funny and I'm going to feel like they're a little more human and I can accept their message a bit more, but you can do that and that's a great point.
Speaker 2:You can do that, you can express that and, by the way, I love and I intend to steal your message, your message. I intend to steal your message, your message. Yes, it is so true. You can demonstrate that you are real, that you are authentic, that you have empathy, without making it sound like or come off as a sales presentation. Yes, right, it's the difference between helping and selling. I always say my greatest marketing strategy is simply to help people. That, in addition to being helpful, it has some psychic, that psychic value reinforcement for those who help, who help, and from a business standpoint.
Speaker 2:that's what, in a lot of venues I've become known for, where I often see others, I will respond to someone posing a question because I can never help sharing my two cents, whether solicited or not. I will respond to a question without ever saying you know, or creating an appearance of you know, oh, I want to help you with this. And then you'll have others in the same thread, for example in an online discussion, saying, oh, my firm does this, I do this, I work with it. You know, look at me, look at me, I want your business. I don't have to ask for the business, I just, I just provide the help and that is satisfying for me and the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can imagine you know doing the work that you do can feel to your clients and people paying your hourly rate like a warm blanket. I don't know if that's the right phrase.
Speaker 2:Warm blanket has never warm blanket never used to describe me, but I take the point.
Speaker 1:I tend to get my phrases confused. I think the term wet blanket is a bad one, but I was thinking of a warm, cozy hug.
Speaker 1:You are a helper, you are a helper, People will never forget the way you make them feel so if someone in their thought leadership or just in their business can make others feel good at the end of the interaction.
Speaker 1:I was very focused on results and I was probably coming to the end of my tenure in that space when I first started working with you, but still a little bit in there and because I thought if someone saw that I was a young woman working on their account, on their PR account, that I needed to get the results to feel validated, important, that I needed to get the results to feel validated, important, you know like I'm managing my business and they could never fire us.
Speaker 1:Then you know it was all out of fear and I was really good, but the problem was I didn't know what kept my clients up at night. I didn't know the names of the dogs I didn't like. I wasn't able to authentically connect with them as humans and, as a result, I was more disposable. I could have, like, dotted every I and crossed every T, but I think that the relationship will weather the storm quicker than the results will weather the storm and that's something I've learned and so like the way we make each other feel to me is like one of the number one values in my business and the way I operate today, rather than out of fear and results focused.
Speaker 2:You know they might not remember what you said, but they'll remember how it felt how you made them feel.
Speaker 2:And you use the word authentic authenticity. Francis Fry from the Harvard Business School written about this extensively had a great TED Talk from a couple of years ago about how to restore or how to build trust, especially within an organization. But this really applies in any setting and she describes a triangle with three points. The first one do I think you are being authentic? Are you showing, are you bringing your false self to what you are delivering, whether it's to a client, whether it's to someone else? Do I feel you understand me? That's empathy, right Empathy. And then do I see the rigor of your logic? Are you articulating clearly what you are doing, what you believe, what you think and why, and when you get all three of those, when you can solidify all three of those, that's when trust builds. So what you were talking about was going from a young, a relatively new account person to becoming the trusted advisor who's always summoned to the table right. That takes, you know, building trust, you have to demonstrate your authenticity.
Speaker 1:Your results.
Speaker 2:You have to be empathetic, right. You have to be empathetic to the needs of the client and how the client feels in whatever situation, right. And of course, the client needs to sense, needs to feel the rigor of your logic in order to trust whatever strategy or recommendation you're putting on the table. So it really all comes down to trust. When you behave in the ways I just described, the behaviors of a thoughtful leader, you are doing things that inherently build and establish trust that you don't get when you simply write an article or stand at a podium at a conference, and I do a lot of both and they're important, but those don't necessarily build that long-term trust that is so essential.
Speaker 1:And I think that, as you were talking, I was like reflecting a bit on my experience and I think that the period of being so focused on results was important for my career growth because I needed some time to mature and I think that, like some of the best communications professionals probably any professional is has evolved as a human enough to be able to have that empathy that you're referencing and hold space for clients' emotional experiences, because I think that is a lot of what we do is hold the space. They often have the answers or we can work it out together, rather than they have a problem and I have to always have the solution, and I think that is where professionals can get it wrong, or young professionals like myself can get it wrong.
Speaker 2:When I was in that position, Look, clients in a lot of respects are, yes, they want the answer, they want the work done, they want it handed to them.
Speaker 2:But they are also looking especially senior executives are looking for a guide, someone to keep them on track, someone to keep them honest, someone who is willing to tell them things they need to hear but don't necessarily want to, and someone who will help you know, who will guide them to the things they may not be thinking about. And when you can do that, when you can deliver that in a way that is not confrontational, that really plays to who they are and to their behaviors. That's what gets you invited back to the table time and again, and some of it is simply knowing the name of the dog, taking those opportunities when it's appropriate to have a little more human conversation, taking those opportunities when it's appropriate to have a little more human conversation, and that just builds that connection, makes that connection so much stronger that when the heat is on, they can't help but want to have you around, want your advice, need your advice and, perhaps most important, be willing to tolerate when you disagree with them.
Speaker 1:So I want to bring this full circle and talk about how business leaders might think differently about thought leadership. I have a take on this, but would you like to start?
Speaker 2:I'm happy to start off. How can business leaders think differently? Figure out where you have your expertise, your influence, your relationships as an executive, as an expert practitioner of something. Think through what are the needs of those I care about, what are the needs of my stakeholders and how can I bring my expertise, what I know, what I've done, my life experience and my relationships and my influence with those in my wider circle. How can they bring us together to address some need constructively? That will help not just my constituents or my stakeholders but many more people. Right? Don't just think it's the difference between broadcasting, I guess, and narrowcasting. Don't just think what can I do right now to make sure that person ups their retainer, keeps me under contract? Think much more broadly, much more expansively, on what you bring that others do not and how to not just harness that but connect it with. You know I hate the term special sauce. It's all bottle thousand island dressing. But how can you couple that with the special sauce, if you will, of others to bring about even greater change?
Speaker 1:So we know that in marketing today, people follow people over brands. It's an evolution that's been happening the past five years, maybe more, and it is really the era of the individual. So I think it's important for brands and businesses to get comfortable with this fact that your employees are showing up online in all their glory. The ones that are showing up in all their glory are going to have the biggest followings and the connection with a broader audience. And it may not be the traditional form of professional this isn't my area but I'm sure that HR teams are doing thorough online searches these days.
Speaker 1:But I also know people who have six-figure side hustles centered on LinkedIn and it can be problematic to employers. And I also know people doing this like 100,000 followers on LinkedIn and the employer is supportive and gets in on it. Like it's not easy to just get in front of 100 people, 100,000 people. So I think for years we, as communicators and PR people, have been saying like equip your employees. They're the number one ambassadors of your brand and business, and I think that's still the case and we have to shed a little bit of the fear of people showing their humanity in the process, because that is what's getting them these results. And you know, an added layer is if you take away someone's ability to have a side hustle which I don't know the stat off the top of my head, but I think, like half the people out there more are having side hustles If you take that away from them, I think they'll leave.
Speaker 1:So, it's becoming like a really complex situation and I know that it's being discussed in boardrooms like so-and-so middle manager marketing person is doing TikTok but she has a half million followers. Like how do we feel about this? How should we approach this? And I think it's getting comfortable with with people showing up in their humanity and humaning out loud.
Speaker 2:Well, as long as that person, as long as that person, that employee, is not doing things on TikTok that could sink the organization and sink the reputation of everyone in the organization around her, then you know what I say encourage it, support it, figure out what you can add to that and how you might also benefit, how the organization might benefit, or perhaps use that to the benefit of some cause that the organization or executives or employees support. Right, so harness it. The other thing I'll say is we have to stop looking at employment, employee relationships as transactional. Yes, people are going to come, people are going to go, right the attitude you know I don't tolerate them having a side hustle, so they're going to leave. You know, and that's the way it works.
Speaker 2:You know what you want to keep them in your network for the rest of your career. One of you is going to have a need for the other at some point and if you have kind of dismissed that employee when they leave as okay, well, another one's going to replace them then you are losing the value of everything you've invested in them so far, the time you've spent, the knowledge you've imparted, the knowledge they imparted on you. So look at every employee relationship. It may end in its current form as the employee goes on to do something else or somewhere else, but the relationship should always endure.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, john, this was so fun. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 2:Love doing it. Thank you for asking. It's kind of a pet topic of mine a bugaboo but was so fun. Thanks for joining. Love doing it. Thank you for asking. It's kind of a pet topic of mine a bugaboo. But you're right, I'd love to keep talking about this because there's just so much there and it keeps my blood pressure down when I don't have to read about it online. Everyone calling themselves a thought leader when I want to scream at the screen no try leading. Love it. Thanks for having.