The Four Traits of Inspiring Thought Leaders

Doug Downs (00:05):

Clearly Nelson Mandela can be regarded as one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century. Imprisoned for 27 years for his values and ideals, he refused to adapt and chose instead to reshape the world. Here's something maybe you didn't know about him. The South African leader always insisted on making his own bed every morning. A n c Deputy Secretary General Jesse Duarte once told a story about a time that he and Mandela were in Shanghai at a very fancy hotel. Now, Chinese hospitality requires the person who cleans your room makes the bed if you do it for them. Well, that's an insult. Duarte pleaded with Mandela, please don't make your bed. It's an insult Here to the staff. Mandela responded, call them, bring them to me. When Mandela met the ladies tasked with cleaning his room. He explained why he had to make the bed himself.

(01:09):

It was a habit he had developed during his years in prison, a symbol of a man who had learned to keep a certain simplicity in his style. It reminded him at the start of each day to be punctual, not to be complacent. That real change requires effort and that there is still much work to be done. The hotel staff understood and accepted his explanation and let him make his own bed. But why did Mandela need to explain this to the hotel staff said Duarte, because he never really cared about what the great big people thought of him, but he did care about what the small people thought of him today on stories and strategies the much sought after, but elusive traits needed to become a real thought leader.

(02:13):

My name is Doug Downs. I've got a few thank yous off the top for this episode on Spotify podcasts can now include polls and questions for listeners to answer. We've been doing that. It's a great way to engage with people listening. Thank you to Gideon for leaving a short note of support for our April 23rd episode this year, A feed Drop on Influencers by Lana Milner and Laura Thompson. Appreciate the support, Gideon. Thank you, Sadique O'Leary, and I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that correctly. Sadik left a message of support about our May 28th episode this year with Aaron Kwittken, a Prophet on the communications engineer, and thank you most recently to Jennifer who left a message of support after our August 20th episode with Zach Cutler of Propel on journalist response rates. We would love to hear from you what you can do on Spotify right in the episode, or hey, you can send us a voice message on SpeakPipe and we can play that on the podcast. The link to our SpeakPipe channel is in the show notes. My guest this week is Kathleen Lucente joining us today from Austin, Texas. Hi Kathleen.

Kathleen Lucente (03:20):

Hi. Great to be here, Doug.

Doug Downs (03:22):

Good to have you lone star state. How are things in Texas still warm and hot and the Dallas Cowboys are playing about the same?

Kathleen Lucente (03:28):

Well, that is about true. We are lucky. We finally got some rain here, which everyone gets quite giddy about.

Doug Downs (03:35):

Yeah, no kidding. Kathleen, you're the c e o and founder of Red Fan Communications in Austin. You're just like me, a former journalist who transitioned into public relations in that time. You've worked with I B M, JP Morgan, Ketchum Worldwide and other global brands and agencies, and you are a regular contributor to the Forbes Agency Council covering communications topics like crisis management, brand positioning and thought leadership. Kathleen Fair to say, thought leadership is a goal for a great many leaders and ordinary people, but somewhat elusive, A great many wannabe, but they aren't. Many think they are, but they ain't, and many think they can't, but perhaps they can. Ultimately, is thought leadership something declared, something obtained or something given?

Kathleen Lucente (04:26):

I think it's a great aspirational goal for people to have if they are a subject matter expert. So I think that when we look at companies right now and you think of PR and marketing, we're looking at companies that truly need to have spokespeople and there's a spokesperson that's great, but every once in a while within the cadre of spokespeople, there's somebody who is a true subject matter expert. Maybe it's supply chain or FinTech or something that people really want to hear what they have to say. They're more missionary than problem solving. They're starting to really talk at a higher level, and that's when you start to see someone moving in from subject matter expert to more of a thought leader.

Doug Downs (05:10):

They share a lot of our values, especially for the audience they're trying to reach. The audience hears the values being expressed and they appreciate the mission that they're on.

Kathleen Lucente (05:19):

Absolutely, and the thing that I think is really important is that for companies to recognize that it is important to have subject matter experts, to have people who are out and able to talk about the pain points that their customers have and to talk at a higher level and not just be talking about their own products or services. But when it comes to this idea of being a thought leader, I have kind of four points that I look at. I mean, I look at a couple of different ways, but number one, you look at someone like Steve Jobs, he was truly more of a missionary than a problem solver. And at the same time, he really was doing both in his product design or if you look at somebody like Richard Saul Warman who created the TED Conference, he saw this opportunity to take technology design or entertainment and design and bring those people together. He really saw that there was a missing opportunity in that case, I consider him more of a action minded community builder, somebody who isn't just in it for themselves, they're trying to create a movement.

Doug Downs (06:26):

You talked about those four points, those essential traits for a thought leader. Let's break these down and go through them one by one. Now, of course, the first one, and you mentioned it with Steve Jobs right off the top, bold visionaries,

Kathleen Lucente (06:39):

Bold, visionary. It's not enough to just have a contrarian point of view and write one article and think that, wow, now I'm a thought leader. You need to really be on a mission. There's got to be a desire to look at the world and say, why are we not looking at this? What is the problem and how are we going to fix this and how am I going to bring the people together that can really change something? And so he did that really in the computing space. I mean, we're untethered. He made it sexy for us to be using these devices and understanding that microprocessors are really in everything that we need, and I think that that's important. He was on a mission to change design in computing and even fonts in computing. He wanted the entire experience to be different. It wasn't just about selling a certain computer or a phone or a music device, but he dabbled in all of them because those are devices that we use in our lives. He was looking at lifestyle. He was a lifestyle brand. And I think that people don't really understand that a lot.

Doug Downs (07:50):

When I'm looking on the internet, I see old video clips of Steve Jobs and inevitably I'll watch and listen to the clip and there's something in it that maybe I didn't get 20 years ago when he was speaking. And boy, I get it, he lived in the future.

Kathleen Lucente (08:07):

Well, absolutely. And he was thinking about the customer experience and this whole idea of today we have companies trying to say that they're customer centric, half of them don't know what that commitment really means. He was very bold in that and was willing to have arguments with his colleagues about it and really debate about it. He was probably not the easiest guy to work with because he wanted to get it right and he wanted to discuss it and bring people together. So I think that's just really, really important to recognize that being a bold visionary is something that I look at Malcolm Gladwell and some of these others that are kind of up and coming in that way. But Steve had a very singular purpose, really. And when you go back and look at that, like those old clips, you can start to see the narrative and the string that goes through that through line really beautifully.

Doug Downs (09:03):

And you can obviously see this in a lot of religious leaders all through time as well. Mahatma Gandhi comes to mind, right?

Kathleen Lucente (09:09):

Absolutely.

Doug Downs (09:11):

Okay. Trait number two evolved enticing communicators, not just what they're doing or what they're promising, how they're saying it.

Kathleen Lucente (09:21):

So when I think of that evolved, enticing communicator, that's that person when you're signing up to go to a conference and it's that keynote speaker that you are willing to put that extra money down because it's like, holy gum drops. I'm going to get to hear this person.

(09:38):

I felt that way actually for me when I was going to the inbound conference last year and Barack Obama was speaking because I really wanted to see what's this guy when he's not in a presidential kind of suite. And it was just delightful. And that's a personal choice for me. But to me, I like his values and his vision and I think just how he walks the walk. But when you think of other people, I think of two different people. I would say Malcolm Gladwell obviously has written tons of books. He writes for the New Yorker, but he does serious research. He's looking at the human and our behavior in a really unique way, and he is committed to thinking about that and even going back in history. And he's got the money behind the research to really bring forward some very thought provoking commentary in his books and in how he speaks and in his interviews. And so you just kind of want to pen to paper. If you're a journalist, you want to, what is he going to say

Doug Downs (10:41):

Next?

Kathleen Lucente (10:43):

And locally here in Austin, Texas, there's a really a cool guy named Jason Dorsey who he focuses more on generational research. And so he's got a whole research organization and he will customize research. And I brought him in a long time ago for a FinTech conference really explaining to consumer banks, credit unions, why they need to start to evolve their technology and understand their customer better and the behaviors of their customer. And he was thinking, he was talking at a whole new level, and people were willing to change their behavior based on what he was saying,

Doug Downs (11:23):

Even

Kathleen Lucente (11:24):

Though I will tell you probably a lot of what he has said is prescriptive in other ways. He was able to bring it to a different level that really engendered kind of a vulnerability and desire to understand the customer in a different level.

Doug Downs (11:40):

And you said it's about touching your audience, connecting with them in a way that they don't feel others do. Another name that comes to mind that fits in here for me is a former New Zealand leader, Jacinda Adern. For a little while at least, she connected with her audience in New Zealand and globally, and then it seems to have splintered apart. Something seems to have gone awry,

Kathleen Lucente (12:06):

And that's got to be very hard when you're in the public eye. I think the challenge there is when you're a politician, you have a certain platform, whereas a thought leader who is not wedded to a political movement or religious movement or something like that where maybe the religion goes off and does something that consumers don't agree with or something like that. Malcolm Gladwell, he can stand alone. He doesn't have that issue. So he can protect his reputation a lot more effectively and create a thought leadership platform that can be lifelong. So for the politician, she has to now find what was the string within that that really got her excited, and what's the next level in her career and what will that be? And I'm sure she will because absolutely thought provoking and fantastic

Doug Downs (13:00):

And suffer the criticisms that are politically motivated, and that's the way it is all around the world. Trait number three, a consistent, ubiquitous and relatable presidents. They're where I need them to be. They're always there, and I know what they're about every time. Love that.

Kathleen Lucente (13:19):

Yeah, that is, it's not enough to write a book and go do the speaker circuit. You really need to be using the channels and marketing where your audience is. And I think Brene Brown does a fantastic job of this. She happens to be a Texan, so I'm not trying to just pull out all the Texans here, but she is ubiquitous and she is vulnerable in her own life and sharing of that. But she also has the degrees and has done the research to be able to back up what she's saying. And she is consistently learning herself and putting more into it. So she's not resting on her laurels, she's putting more out, she's connecting with people. And she's also, I would say humble and willing to admit if she maybe learned something new that may have discredit something earlier in her research. So I think one of those things is when you can really connect with somebody, you're going to follow them on all those channels.

(14:20):

You're going to want to hear them, and you're going to want to buy their next book. You're going to feel a kindred spirit with them and maybe even feel like you can send them a comment or send them a note because there seems like there's a synergy you feel. It's funny, when I was a little kid, I remember being in second grade and I watched Sonny and Cher all the time on tv. They had this crazy show, and it was provocative and your eyes just couldn't believe the clothes they wore as a little kid. And I remember saying, I'm going to write a letter to Cher. I mean, I feel like she and I are connected. And I wrote a letter to Cher because she was in my living room every Thursday night, and this is before the internet. And she wrote back and sent me photos and everything,

Doug Downs (15:09):

And

Kathleen Lucente (15:09):

That made me feel like even more of a fan of hers. Now, that's kind of a silly example because internet didn't exist and all the things, but imagine the channels we have now and how we can connect with consumers and people of all different ages, and we have, it's also a honor to be able to do that. And you have to be really respectful and understand the responsibility as a thought leader when you're putting stuff out. Because we also see thought leaders that sometimes get a little over their skis and they might say some things that could cause some problems for their followers. And so understanding the power that you hold as a true thought leader is also something to, and the ethics around that is also important.

Doug Downs (15:51):

Who gets that? And he'd be slightly controversial, but Ricky DVAs, the British comedian, I recently posted something. It was about how much I enjoyed his comedy and his style and how difficult it is to do it at that elite level. And he liked and reposted.

Kathleen Lucente (16:10):

Wow.

Doug Downs (16:11):

Well, you can imagine how little old me felt about that, right? I was just,

Kathleen Lucente (16:15):

That's exciting. Right,

Doug Downs (16:16):

Exactly. So how important is that? Social media is a great example for thought leaders to actually engage in interact, because social media is also a cesspool. I don't know if you've noticed,

Kathleen Lucente (16:26):

Oh, my word. Are you kidding? So during the day, I'm on LinkedIn mostly, or Twitter or now X of course,

Doug Downs (16:34):

X. Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (16:35):

But Instagram, TikTok, the whole nine yards, you have to be aware of all of it. And celebrities are messing up all the time. And I think that the bigger issue is where do we want to put our energy? And a thought leader needs to really think about that and not try to be the cool hip kid on the block. Use the channels wisely, but don't try to. It's not a popularity contest. A true thought leader is not trying to run around and create drama. And that's a different kind of social media celebrity.

Doug Downs (17:17):

Right? Well said. Trait number four, action minded community builders.

Kathleen Lucente (17:24):

This is the selflessness of a thought leader. So this is somebody who really is, I would say the TED Conference, like Richard, Saul Warman or someone of that nature that really truly sees that they think that there's something missing and they want to bring community together. So they're not, I mean, for example, the TED Conference and TED is actually a nonprofit. A lot of people don't realize that it stands for technology, entertainment, and Design. It was started as a nonprofit with the mission, like I said, of bringing technology, entertainment, and design together. And I remember I've actually attended one of the first head conferences, and it was really an inner circle. And there were musicians. There were people from entertainment industry and technology, and people from I B M where I was working at I B M research who were looking at new designs and things like that. Loved going to this, the designers to get inspired by how are we working together, where does the fusion of these three things? And now TED has actually evolved into a much bigger effort, and now it's bigger. It's about sharing ideas of all sorts, but it still is, it's actually started as a nonprofit. And that is Richard Saul Warman. It's a great example. I think it started in 1989 is when he started that concept. And he comes from an architecture design background. So

Doug Downs (18:52):

You know what I like about that form of thought leadership is essentially what Richard Saul Warman has built is a stage upon which thought leaders can express their ideas

Kathleen Lucente (19:01):

A hundred percent and converge. He would bring jazz musicians together with someone like Steve Jobs. He would bring just people together that you would never have run into normally. But then when they connect, new things can emerge, new designs can emerge, innovation can happen, and almost like a laboratory of connections, if you will. And so he loves seeing the sparks fly. He loves seeing just the energy. He didn't need to force it. It just happened. And by creating that venue and that opportunity that has now expanded into something much larger that we all can enjoy because it was much more of a exclusive and fairly expensive event to initially go to. And now we can all kind of tap into Ted and TEDx.

Doug Downs (19:51):

Kathleen, thanks for this. Stay. Cool. Enjoy the rain. That's welcome. Respite. But I appreciate your time.

Kathleen Lucente (19:58):

Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure, Doug. Have a great one.

Doug Downs (20:02):

If you'd like to send a message to my guest, Kathleen, we've got her information in the show notes. Stories and strategies is a co-production of J G R Communications and Stories and Strategies podcasts. If you'd like this episode, one thing you could do for us as a favor is leave a rating and a review. There's a single link to click. You can do it all with one click that is in the show notes as well. And please, if you really like this episode, share it with one friend. Thanks for listening.