Name: Alex Monov
Date: Feb 23, 2022
We sat down with Marcus Murphy, the co-founder and CEO of The Five Percent, an international community geared toward inspiring, equipping, and facilitating actionable content for emerging entrepreneurs to discuss all things thought leadership and what the future holds for the industry. Apart from that, Marcus is a business expert who cares deeply about the flourishing and success of entrepreneurs. He sits on the advisory board at LinkedIn and is a sought after speaker and trainer to LinkedIn Learning’s more than 22 million students.
How do you define thought leadership?
Thought leaders are those who put value out in the world with what they say, what they're doing, and the visions they cast. That’s why everybody wants to follow them.
What is good thought leadership to you?
Conflict or friction within an organization is not actually usually because people don't like each other or don't like their job. It's because they feel like they don't know what's going on.
The problem is, a lot of the people in those executive seats aren't sharing their experience across their own company.
The lack of communication comes from a kind of imposter syndrome that senior leaders at corporates suffer from. They tell themselves too frequently that their experiences—the things they know, the things they do daily—are not that valuable.
But what they see as mundane and everyday is actually what somebody else—maybe somebody twenty paces behind them in terms of career—is desperately trying to figure out.
Senior executives need to understand that thought leadership is the missing link. It’s a great thing when they realise ‘Oh, wait, somebody just wanted to know how I balance my ledger. Somebody wanted to know how I make payroll. Somebody wants to know how I do X, Y, or Z.’
Thought leadership doesn't just have to be coming up with new ideas that inspire people, thought leadership can also be really good internal communication.
People talk about being ‘authentic’, but what does that really mean in practice?
Authenticity is a great word. Everybody loves being authentic or thinking they're authentic. But I think the word that trumps authenticity is empathy. That’s the place that most authenticity comes from anyway.
When you understand that you don't have to be the most polished version of yourself when you understand how to be vulnerable, it attracts people—it’s key to connecting with other people.
So if you focus on those two things, having empathy and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, there's no way you can't be authentic.
What does the future of thought leadership look like?
My prediction is that we’re going to see a lot more practitioner-led thought leadership from people that are in the trenches.
I don't want to hear any more hypotheticals anymore from people telling me about things they've never done themselves. I want to learn from somebody who's truly been doing the work so I can take whatever they're doing and apply it.
It’s not enough as a thought leader just to say something inspiring. That’s not what changes people's lives. I have not met an entrepreneur in the last five years that said to me, ‘You know why I failed? I failed because I just didn't have enough content.’ No, they failed because they didn't take the right action.
Inspiration dissipates quickly. Actionable things like roadmaps and plans of execution—that’s what changes people's businesses.
What advice do you have for someone who’s looking to do more thought leadership?
The first step is to take time and figure out what you are interested in because there's no way to growth hack this. You won’t run out of steam if you focus on the things you're absolutely passionate about and can speak about at length.
So for me, if you get me on the topic of LinkedIn or entrepreneurship—I never need any prep. I don't need anybody to give me a minute, I’m able to be off-the-cuff with those things, because I can speak at length about my actual experiences, what people should do, and how to do it.
So take an inventory of the things that you find yourself thinking about and also the things you can relevantly and effectively speak to. Because although you might be interested in a topic, you might not have enough experience to effectively speak to those things. The true test is having somebody ask you questions about your topic. If it takes you a lot of time to sit there and think about it or you don't have an answer, then you probably shouldn't be speaking to it.
And I think that's why I laugh when I’m on Clubhouse. Everybody always has something to say. There are times I'm on panels where I'm like, ‘Hey, I have no idea. That's not my topic. I'm going to defer on that question because I don't have anything to add.‘ I'm not trying to be an expert in everything. Everybody has to find the niche that they want to be an expert in and figure out ways that they can serve and help other people with the information and experience they genuinely have.
If you could go back now and change anything about your journey, what things would you do differently?
I wish I could go back and say to myself, ‘Someday Marcus, you're going to want to speak on stages and do interviews about the things that you built, not the things that you know.’
What I actually did is found something that I could carve out and make my own, which was LinkedIn at the time. It didn't mean that I was the most passionate person about LinkedIn, I just tried to find something that nobody was really talking about. And I felt like, ‘Hey, I kind of know this stuff. I feel like I'm good with it.’ And basically, I started to become a LinkedIn expert.
But if I could do it again, I would take the time to distil down my values and create an avatar of what kind of person I was going to be down the road before I built up my profile. And then, LinkedIn can fit in there. Entrepreneurship can fit in there. Because now, it's not LinkedIn or The Five Percent that comes to mind when people think about Marcus Murphy - it's Marcus Murphy, the thoughtful, energetic communicator. It’s those personal attributes that should be the foundation of your journey instead of any one particular vehicle.