Every week I send clients a rundown of what’s moving in their industry. Recently I flagged that a term at the center of one client’s field had turned up in an outlet that had never used it before.
Most responses were what you’d expect. “Good to see it included.” “Nice mention.”
Then one executive wrote back. “No, you don’t understand. For that top tier outlet to make that connection and use that term in a broader industry discussion, that’s a big deal.” He had been watching that term for years. The outlet mattered. The timing mattered. To me, it was a trend. To him, it was a milestone.
That is the difference between commentary and a point of view.
Here’s the part that stayed with me: he cc’d his team. His response, the one nobody else on the thread could have produced, went to a handful of people who already worked for him. His unique perspective never left the building. And the industry, the one he understands better than almost anyone, never heard it.
Most executives don’t think of themselves as thought leaders because they assume it means inventing something new to say. It doesn’t. The value was never in inventing the thought. It’s in recognizing what your seat at the table lets you see.
He knew when a word choice wasn’t just a word choice. He knew when a small shift in language signaled a larger shift in adoption, credibility and belief. He had been watching the field longer than most people have been paying attention to it. But none of it registered as “insight,” because to him it wasn’t insight. It was just Tuesday. So the sharpest idea he had was relegated to an internal email, while his public platform was reserved for reposting the company’s press release.
I’ve seen this again and again: an executive’s most compelling insights stay hidden from public view. But if you only use your public voice to share news stemming from your company, if every other C-suite executive at your company could have written the post you’re about to publish, it isn’t a point of view. It’s a company update with your name on it. Accurate, polished – and forgettable. Your industry looks to your company for updates. It looks to you for perspective.
Executives worth reading do the opposite. One CEO I follow has served in various companies innovating mental health technology. When a disaster fills everyone’s feed, he posts a few lines on what it does to people impacted, drawn from years of understanding trauma. He isn’t announcing anything. He isn’t selling. He’s just the one person in the room who understands what everyone else is only watching.
That’s a voice, and it’s available to nearly every executive convinced they don’t have one. And that voice often takes mining to surface. So the question to ask your C-suite isn’t “what do you want to say.” It’s “what do you see here that I don’t?”
Look at what you stopped on this week. What made you write back, or forward it, or say “no, this is bigger than people realize.” That reaction is the point of view. You already had it.
You just sent it to the wrong audience.
