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Summary of Influencers
If you’ve survived this far in the article, I ask you one thing. Are you influencing? If you’re a well known name, are you leveraging celebrity or influence? Are you concerned about what your readers care about? Are you addressing their concerns? Do you even know what those concerns are?
When you engage with your community, do you do it in an argumentative way? Is it more important for you to be heard or to be right?
It’s important to me that people hear this. Cult of personality is not healthy and does nothing to move ideas forward. To influencers, it’s important for them not to necessarily be recognized. If they want recognition, they are simply egos looking for celebrity-hood.
“Those who value dialogue, compromise and even dissent are destined to be great influencers.”
Influencers value their community above all else. Many influencers are quiet, but when they speak people notice. The economy of words and actions speak for the influencer. They are not simply the loud guy in the corner banging the drum.
I’m very tired of seeing a variety of people who are held up as influencers when they are not. They are celebrities, mostly minor. They are known to travel in certain circles and like to be seen for the sake of being seen. They argue with you when you challenge their positions, because they feel like their entire self value is being deprecated if they are wrong.
These are not influencers. These are egos and, without significant adjustment to their modus operandi, they are doomed to a career of futility and insignificance. They will never be a Euclid or a President George H. W. Bush. They will never build consensus or affect positive change, as Martin Luther King, Jr. did. They will live a life of mediocrity, always looking for propping up by others.
However, those who value dialogue, compromise and even dissent are destined to be great influencers. Whether history remembers them broadly, or they rise in unplanned, but welcome, prominence within their companies and organizations, these men and women will always be special and be considered elite among their peers.