The phrase ‘thought leader’ has become corporate jargon at its least compelling, often signaling more about someone’s branding than their actual contributions.

The phrase “thought leadership” (‘TL’ for short) makes more than a few of us cringe. But beneath this overused and let’s face it, really clunky, corporate phrase lies a crucial truth. The big thinkers in your organization aren’t necessarily wearing that badge right now.

It’s the people on the periphery who see things first.

They’re your sales team having candid conversations with customers. Your developers finding unexpected solutions. Slack conversations… bottlenecks being solved in real time. Or your front-line workers tweaking processes that executives may never see.

Conventional wisdom often gets it wrong. Innovative insights don’t automatically flow from the top down. They bubble up from the edges, where the theoretical meets the real, i.e. “the rubber meets the road.” Data backs this up — a 2024 Edelman survey found that authentic, expert content outperforms traditional marketing by a wide margin.

Makes sense to me. Think about it like dining out. Which would you trust more, a look at the glossy menu photos, or getting to have a conversation with the chef, in the kitchen?

“TL success” begins with subject matter experts striving to understand what an audience needs. What keeps them up at night? What obstacles are they facing? What insights could genuinely add value to their world, etc.

Great TL comes when you isolate topics that are just starting to percolate, in real conversations around the company, but that haven’t also been processed in media yet. Place high value on those raw perspectives that emerge from the periphery.

How to uncover them? A tried-and-true brainstorming technique is to invite junior staff to speak first in these meetings. Oftentimes their fresh perspectives help shatter groupthink — promoting insights that would otherwise vanish if senior voices dominate the room. Similarly, with difficult “A versus B” decisions, we designate one person to champion option B (even if everyone else leans toward A), which forces debate and counterargument.

These are the unfiltered opinions that come in before the feedback is polished or processed through channels. Intel founder Andy Grove knew this back in 1997 when he wrote, “Speak to, listen to, and learn from your own sales force. They encounter the bare truths of your organization first.”

To that I would add, include these people in your TL content now.

The future belongs to companies that can identify, listen to and amplify these authentic voices — whether from the C-suite, the front line or anywhere in between. And they’ll do this without ever using the term, “thought leadership.”