Copyright forbes
A megaphone makes noise. Thought leadership makes meaning and helps people see what they couldn’t before. Let’s say you’ve just spent three months pulling together a killer report. It’s got charts. It’s got stats. It’s got more acronyms than the those used by the federal government. You hit publish. You post it on LinkedIn. You get a few likes. Your CEO shares it with the comment “Great work, team!” And then… No waves. No spark. No mental reframe in your audience. Just another piece of content slowly floating to the bottom of the thought leadership ocean. If this has happened to you, take heart. It’s not that your expertise is lacking. It’s that you may be doing what I call broadcasting your expertise instead of leading with it. And there’s a difference. Broadcasting is done with a megaphone. It’s about output. Volume. When you broadcast, you signal expertise rather than share generated insights. Leading, on the other hand, is a quiet but powerful invitation. It’s about surfacing ideas people didn’t know they needed, such as shifts they haven’t yet articulated, and giving shape to ambiguity. Leading with expertise is not about sounding smart. It’s about making the reader feel smart for thinking with you. Now, most of us (especially those in B2B, consulting, tech, or academia-adjacent fields) fall into the broadcast trap from time to time, myself included. So in the spirit of editorial tough love, here are three signs you might be broadcasting your expertise—and what to do instead. MORE FOR YOU Way 1. You’re Writing Like a Brochure in Business Casual Let’s start with tone. If your thought leadership sounds like an internal sales deck wearing khakis and using the word “ecosystem” six times before lunch, we have a problem. You may be broadcasting if: Your first paragraph includes the phrase “In today’s fast-changing landscape...” Every section header is a version of “Why [Thing] Matters More Than Ever” You’re leaning heavily on safe adjectives like “innovative,” “robust,” or “seamless” Here’s the thing: readers can smell self-promotion in a sentence. When you sanitize your voice and over-smooth your sentences, you create what I call “glidepath prose.” It sounds fine. It flows. But it doesn’t land. The antidote? Clarity with friction. Good editorial writing needs texture. A little edge. A little specificity. It should feel like someone is thinking on the page—not just reciting approved messaging. Trade “ecosystem optimization” for “companies are duct-taping old systems together and praying for the best.” Now you’ve got my attention. Way 2. You’re Treating Insight Like a Product Demo One of the clearest signs you’re broadcasting is when your narrative is built around features instead of ideas. A lot of thought leadership reads like: “We’ve built a unique framework to help companies manage complexity.” Cut to 800 words describing the framework. End with a CTA to learn more. This is not a story. This is a product sheet for a framework. Real thought leadership doesn’t start with what you made. It starts with what you see. What shift are you witnessing that others aren’t? What question is your audience quietly wrestling with but hasn’t put into words? What unspoken tension needs naming? If your content isn’t anchored in some kind of idea friction, it doesn’t matter how elegant your framework is. No one will care until they feel the problem in their gut. Instead of showcasing what you’ve built, narrate the insight journey that led you there. I call that an “Understand the problem story.” Let your reader feel the spark of recognition that you felt when you first saw the pattern emerge. That’s how you lead—not just inform, at the individual or at the firm-wide level. Way 3. You’re Speaking at the Audience, Not with Them Broadcast mode is all about posture: “I’m the expert. You’re the audience. I’ll explain.” This may have worked in 2007. But today’s readers are drowning in smart-sounding content. What they crave is better questions, not more answers. Broadcast content rarely asks anything of the reader beyond passive absorption. There’s no gap to fill. No moment that makes them pause and reflect. No space where the author risks uncertainty or invites co-discovery. Leading content does the opposite. It says: Here’s something I’m noticing. Do you see it too? Here’s a shift that may be underway. What might that mean for you? It’s subtle, but it transforms the dynamic. It activates the reader’s own sense of agency and insight. And in doing so, it builds trust—the real currency of thought leadership. If you want to stop broadcasting, ditch the podium. Pick up a pen and start a conversation with the sheet of paper, sticking to those ideas that are relevant to your audience. The Real Problem with Broadcasting Your Expertise Broadcasting feels productive. It feels like you're doing your job. Publishing. Posting. Promoting. But if you’re not generating resonance, you’re just adding to the noise. And the sad truth is, a lot of thought leadership today is beautifully formatted noise. The difference between noise and resonance? Narrative integrity. That means your idea has stakes. It’s built not just to deliver information, but to move minds. And that’s the hardest—and most human—part of this work. It requires you to slow down. To listen harder. To strip out jargon. To sharpen the signal and resist the lure of safe content. It’s not about writing more. It’s about writing what only you can see. What to Do Instead: The Anti-Broadcast Checklist Next time you’re reviewing a draft (yours or someone else’s), run it through this quick test: Does it sound like something a real person would say out loud at a dinner party—without getting uninvited? Is the insight rooted in a shift—not just a service offering? Does it name a tension that creates urgency and momentum? Would a smart reader feel smarter for having read it—or just informed? Does it make you feel something—curiosity, friction, clarity, even surprise? If the answer to most of these is no, you’re probably broadcasting. But the good news is that now you know. And knowing is how you begin to lead and stop broadcasting your expertise. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
