Thought Leadership: What Is It and How To Do It?

According to Wikipedia, a thought leader is a futurist or person who is recognized for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights

How does this apply to the real world? I am still thinking on this, but here are my early reflections:

• You need to be original in your thinking.

• You must have enough edge to force people to have an opinion.

• You must address issues that broaden everyone’s horizon.

• You must act as a gate-keeper that finds and share relevant information.

• You need to build a following that buy into and help spread your ideas.

What do you think? What can you add?