It's the thought that counts.

What is a thought leader? Wikipedia defines a thought leader as a person who is recognized among their peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights.

Taking the vast ocean of opportunities, how does a thought leader develop ideas into a full grown an action plan? Being a thought leader can be a powerful tool, especially in the development stages of a endeavour, such a taking a company international or developing a compensation plan for a network marketing company.

The health of a company indeed is built upon leadership. According to Heartland, a network of leaders, "Some visions of thought leaders are to fuel the evolution of leaders who choose to contribute to sustaining life (body, mind and spirit) in ourselves, our organizations, and our communities. Leadership development is rooted in personal development & organizational transformation is rooted in individual transformation." It seems that Leadership Development is more than helping people become a dynamic speaker, or a top CEO known for organizational skills, LD is also about helping people expand opportunities in the area of thinking.

Christopher Columbus was a thought leader. While most of the known world thought he was crazy for believing he could sail around the ocean, not because everyone thought the world was flat (after the 2nd Century most actually believed the world to be round), but rather the voyage would take so long that a crew would run out of water and food long before reaching Asia. He opened up vast wealth to Spain for investing in his excursion.

Michael Dell is a thought leader. Some of you may know the story how instead of pursuing medicine Michael Dell left to build computers. He thought leadership was evident when he decided that he could sell his computers directly to the customer, something no other company had done at that point as successfully as he did.