Thought Leadership: Who Do The Big Timers Listen To?

Have you ever considered who the Real Movers-and-Shakers in Business rely on for advice and thought leadership?  How do these Big Timers and Headliners stay on top of their game?  We grad students look to those Big Deal C-Suite Execs for advice and insights, but to whom do they turn for navigation in our fast-moving business environment?

If you're thinking Malcolm Gladwell or Michael Porter, you're spot on!  But, according to Business Insider, there are TEN Thinkers that Executives actually listen to.  

Check out their Top Ten List below:

1. Malcolm Gladwell, award-winning New Yorker writer and one of Time's 2005 most influential people; author of The Tipping Point, Blink & Outliers.
2. Don Tapscott, "one of the world’s leading authorities on innovation, media, globalization and the economic and social impact of technology on business and society" (says The Thinkers50) and author of one of the first books about how the Internet would completely change business.  WHOA!  
   
3. Marcus Buckingham, a revolutionary thought leader advocating focusing on your strengths - not trying to be something you're not. (I like the sound of that!)
4. Marshall Goldsmith, creator of "360-degree feedback" and the writer of The Leader of the Future and MOJO: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back If You Lose It.  (This book sounds great, and listen to this... the book focuses around creating and seizing "the moment when we do something that's purposeful, powerful and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it."  Watch out, World! And Hello, Amazon.com WishList!)
5. Roger Martin, known for his book The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, The Design of Business and Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism can Learn from the NFL.
6. Of course, the esteemed Michael Porter!  Need I say anymore?
7. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great  & How the Might Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In, which identifies the five sequential stages of a business' decline.  
8. Vijay Govindarajan, or VG, one of the top experts on strategy and innovation who was GE's first Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant. His popular books include Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators and The Other Side of Innovation, which "focuses on how to turn an innovative idea into a successful commercial business."  (I will be looking into this one to shed some light on Blue Oceans & starting my own business!) 
9. And speaking of Blue Ocean... W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne, co-directors of INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontainebleau, France and authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, a thesis revealing that most companies are competing in overcrowded industries (Red Oceans), so it is better to innovate than compete.  Sound familiar?
10. Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma, a book on every entrepreneur's reading list if not already on their nightstand.  He has advised executives of many of the world's major corporations who used his guidance to generate tens of billions of dollars every year (!!!) from product and service innovations inspired by his research.  

I don't know about you, but I am certainly inspired to some cues from these trailblazers!  Talk about being motivated to make some room for more reading and forge a path to bring passion to your profession!  

Having considered these thought-innovators and assessed the potential of the next generation (Us) to hop onto this list, we must raise the obvious question:  Who is the next thought leader and advisor to the Movers-and-Shakers of today and tomorrow?  IS IT YOU!?