by Kent Height
"Founder-led content isn’t vanity or chasing likes. It’s about leverage – the kind that gets you in the room before your SDR even picks up the phone."
Let’s be honest – in 2025, attention is a bloodsport. Founders know they need to show how they think. But most don’t. They’re building, firefighting, and wondering if what they say will even matter. Or worse: if it’ll just get scrolled past.
But silence? That’s a branding decision too. It just means other people write your story for you.
According to LinkedIn and Edelman’s 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, 73% of decision-makers say they trust a company more when its leadership shares insights. And according to LinkedIn’s 2025 B2B Creators report, 82% of buyers say creator content influences them.
Founder-led content is your unfair advantage. It’s a growth engine. It drives visibility, speeds up buying decisions, builds trust at every stage of the customer journey, and shapes internal culture.
73%
of decision-makers say they trust a company more when its leaders share insights.
The data clearly highlights how high the stakes are; either you control the narrative, or someone else does.
Content that showcases how a founder thinks is often the first and most influential touchpoint. Buyers don’t just scan company pages anymore. They search people. And they trust people.
What works?
- Lived insights over vague, inspirational feel-good filler
- Genuine perspective over predictable, generic content
- Specificity over safe generalisations
Consistent leadership visibility on LinkedIn helps strengthen employer brand and attract top talent. Employee-created content has a reach 12x greater than company pages, and CEO content sees 4x more engagement. If you’re not publishing, you’re invisible – to customers and future team members.
What Thought Leadership Is – and Isn’t
Thought leadership is not about flooding the feed with generic content. It’s about having a genuine, consistent point of view rooted in lived experience, real opinions (even when they feel uncomfortable or controversial), and clarity of purpose. It’s not a disguised sales pitch. It’s leadership in public.
A 2024 Originality.AI study found that over 54% of long-form LinkedIn content is now AI-written. Your buyers can tell. If your content reads like a prompt response, it doesn’t matter how often you post – you’ll get ignored – or worse, you’ll damage your credibility. AI-generated, soulless content won’t just fall flat – it can quietly erode trust.
True thought leadership isn’t loud. It’s useful. It answers questions your market hasn’t yet figured out how to ask. It draws on lived experience. It often challenges the status quo. And it can show a genuine depth of audience understanding that your marketing content simply cannot match.
What cuts through:
- Clear opinion backed by first-hand experience
- Relevant expertise that solves real business problems
- Tangible insight that helps people act or think differently
Video, webinars, and original social posts are the top three most influential content types for B2B buyers – with video alone influencing 63% of buying decisions. And content from industry experts and business leaders is trusted more than analyst or brand posts. If you want to cut through, be useful, be visible, and be real.
“We have a dearth of thought leadership because everyone is afraid to take a stand.”
Marcus Sheridan
The Emotional Resistance – Why Founders Don’t Post
Most founders believe in the idea of content. But they rarely publish.
Why? What’s the story they tell themselves that keeps them quiet?
- They’re too busy
- They’re not sure what to say
- They’re worried about how they’ll be perceived
Underneath it all, many fear being judged. They think they need to sound smarter, more successful, or more polished than they really feel. But here’s the truth: the only thing worse than saying the wrong thing is saying nothing at all. Your silence lets someone else tell your story – or worse, lets your relevance fade altogether.
That last one is the killer. Imposter syndrome keeps more founders silent than strategy ever will. But if you’ve raised a round, built a team, closed a customer, or pivoted under pressure – you’re sitting on insight that other people need – insight that creates real value and proves your credibility.
True thought leadership doesn’t require a TED Talk or a ten-figure exit. What it does require is substance: personal experiences that shaped how you operate, professional lessons that others can learn from, and a point of view shaped by reality – not recycled slogans. Add a layer of informed foresight or a willingness to challenge accepted wisdom, and you’ve got the core ingredients. You don’t need to be Simon Sinek, Steve Jobs, or Sheryl Sandberg. In fact, trying to sound like them usually backfires.
What resonates in B2B today isn’t guru-speak – it’s clarity, conviction, and a founder’s real perspective shared in a way that only they could express.
You don’t need to go viral. You just need to go visible.
“Digital small talk doesn’t build trust.
It builds indifference.”
A Simple System for Founder Content That Converts
In a world of overwhelm, value beats volume. Consistency matters – but only when what you’re publishing is actually worth someone’s attention. Here’s a minimum viable rhythm that works:
- Weekly: 1 short-form LinkedIn post (insight, belief, challenge)
- Monthly: 1 long-form article or thread (lesson learned, POV, prediction)
- Quarterly: 1 flagship asset (webinar, keynote-style post, AMA, podcast)
Anchor everything in the 3-A Model:
- Authority (from experience – because when your insights come from what you’ve actually done, not what you’ve read or copied, they hit harder. Experience builds credibility. Credibility earns trust.)
- Authenticity (in tone – because your audience wants to hear you, not a polished marketing persona. When your content reflects how you think and speak, it becomes more relatable and more trusted.)
- Actionability (something they can do or think about differently – because valuable content doesn’t just impress, it equips. When your content helps someone take action or shift perspective, you become more than visible – you become useful. And usefulness builds trust, fast.)
When Content Backfires (and What to Avoid)
Here’s what kills credibility:
- Daily posts written by ChatGPT with no substance
- Updates about team off-sites and nothing else
- Founder content run through corporate comms filters
Buyers and future hires aren’t looking for digital wallpaper. They’re looking for signal. And yet, LinkedIn is awash with content that says nothing and helps no one.
Sharing that you had a great meeting or just made your train to Wokingham isn’t thought leadership – it’s digital small talk. If that’s the highlight of your day, share it with your family over dinner. But every post you put on LinkedIn should show your value, express your thinking, and position you as a credible, considered leader – not a commentator on logistics.
The Bottom Line
If you’re a founder or business leader, your visibility is no longer optional – it’s a growth lever. In the eyes of investors, customers, and top-tier talent, your content is your credibility. It’s what signals whether you’re leading with clarity or hiding behind a logo. Every post, every insight, every story you share is an opportunity to build momentum, not just noise.
We’re in a market where every deal is scrutinised, every hire is harder, and every competitor is louder. In that landscape, the one who shows up with genuine insight stands out. High-value content doesn’t just attract pipeline; it builds belief. It makes you easier to trust and harder to ignore.
The founders who communicate are the founders who win. Content is how you scale that communication. Not just to promote – but to lead. With influence, with proof, and with purpose.
Author: Kent Height
Thought leader, growth marketer and consultant to innovative start-ups and scale-ups - Kent is the founder of Techtonic, and a leading voice on successfully scaling businesses with value-driven strategies. Based at Cambridge Science Park in the UK, he helps ambitious organisations cut through the noise to drive real commercial results and audience engagement with impact.
