Thought Leadership as instigator of change

We need organisations that take a progressive role in driving such change. Organisations that are not afraid to express their novel views on economic and social themes, and show how they put this into practice. These organisations are not afraid to break away from the old thought and behaviour patterns in order to create room for change and renewal. In fact, these organisations are eager to shift paradigms in their market and society. At the Dutch School of Thought, we call such organisations thought leaders.

Too often, people equate thought leaders with being the ‘knowledgeable expert’ or ‘guru’ in the industry. Simply having the knowledge and expertise is not enough for being recognised as a thought leader and standing out from the crowd. Thought leaders are guided by a novel viewpoint on important themes in their market and society and show leadership in translating these viewpoints into real behaviour and results. They question status-quo thinking and propose alternative realities. They not only do this for the sake of questioning the status quo, but because they know that alternative ways of thinking and acting are the way to ignite change.

Such organisations may be rare. We might call them ‘a dime a dozen’ and therefore disregard them as not being part of our own organisational reality. However, this is not the point. The point is that we can learn from their unique way of doing things. It is by looking at the extreme, that we can get inspired to stimulate new ways of thinking and acting that serve our future reality.

At the Dutch School of Thought, we study these thought leaders (working in profit, non-profit, private or public organisations) to learn from their best practices as well as the challenges they face. We share our insights with the Dutch School of Thought community through case-studies, articles, trending topics and blogs.