On Writing

Why every leader should write, and why writing for social media counts.

“Leaders are readers,” or so the saying goes, usually accompanied by the suggested reading list from the leader who said it.

My follow up to that has been that leaders are also writers, and that writing across all forms and all platforms is part of modern leadership.

The Army defines leadership (FM 6-22) as “the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.”

While many of us have a glorified view of what that looks like—leading from the front, in the mud, racing into the fight—more often than not, it looks like communication. We communicate our purpose or intent, or we demonstrate it and other folks communicate the impact of our actions to others. Either way, if you want to influence more than a handful of people who saw something happen, someone has to communicate about it.

Leadership happens in actions, but lives and scales by the spoken or written word. Sometimes this happens through traditional media, but these days, it happens in places many professionals still dismiss: shortform essays, captions, blog entries, Substack, LinkedIn posts, and other social threads.

I touched on why public speaking was important to you as a leader last week, and this week, as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., I want to touch on why writing is equally important, if not more so.

If you want to lead in a modern organization, you must write. It’s thinking made visible, direction and intent made durable. And it’s the fastest and most effective way to shape ideas, strategy, and culture at a distance.

Let’s decode it. 🚀

Leaders Write

A look at the leadership skills grown and revealed by writing

Writing forces clarity, and clarity is an essential leadership skill.

Talking lets you hide fuzzy thinking in a way writing doesn’t. When you write, the idea hits the page exactly as coherent—or not—as it really is.

Writing demands structure. Logic. Knowing what you’re trying to say before you actually say it—or else you immortalize your stream-of-consciousness.

Many leaders don’t really realize how many of their ideas are only half-formed because they live only in conversation or in their heads. It’s not that those ideas are wrong, but they’re not fully laid out in a way that their logic can be explored. Writing fixes that, and forces you to complete your logic.

The moment you translate a concept into clear sentences, you find the missing steps, the assumptions you didn’t question or force yourself to lay out the connections you were making subconsciously and see if they actually fit.

That’s the first lesson leaders must learn: writing helps you think.

And it helps others understand how you’re thinking at a scale far greater than any meeting or town-hall.

A well-written idea can travel. It’ll circulate beyond you. And it can create alignment, spark action, and shape understanding even when you’re nowhere near the conversation.

A leader who writes has the ability to:

• Share vision at scale

• Influence decisions without being physically present

• Establish expertise beyond their titles or environment

• Build connection and credibility with people they may never meet

• Create a transparent record of priorities, values, and expectations

Writing creates permanent leverage in a world where our time is not permanent at all.

It’s also one of the most accessible forms of professional development.

Most leadership development costs time, money, or both. And writing costs neither. It’s one of the few skills you can practice anywhere, at any moment, with nothing more than a keyboard or a notebook. It’s self-directed, self-paced, and endlessly repeatable.

And the more you write, especially when you share it for feedback, and when you take the time to critique it yourself, the better you get.

So, you should write. But where, and for whom?

Writing for journals and general audiences

Peer-reviewed, formal, polished writing matters. Especially now, when there are so many available venues for publication.

Writing for journals, especially respected journals, still forms the foundation for sharing well researched, logical, peer-reviewed, evidential work. It invites challenge and critique, contributes to the professional body of knowledge, and establishes your credibility in the field.

Professional journals are extensions of the laboratory. It’s where you really polish your thinking and participate in the long arc of your profession.

Every leader should do some of it.

Likewise, every leader should also write for a general audience. It forces you to understand your topic in a whole new way. My mother tells a story about how her dissertation advisor often told her that if you truly understand your topic, you can teach it to a chimpanzee. A stretch, perhaps, but still, if you can break down your topic into the nuts and bolts, you truly understand it.

When you publish accessible articles—whether in popular magazines, blogs, newsletters, or social platforms—they democratize knowledge, and bridge the gap between only what “insiders” know and what everyone grappling with real-world problems needs to understand.

Writing articles for the lay audience rather than the technical audience, especially as a subject matter expert in your field, forces you to translate jargon into plain language, walk people through how to take a theory and practically apply it, and makes your ideas available to people who can use them. I’ve been criticized for making my writing too simplistic and not academic enough, but I’m not interested in academic debate (although I will take a good peer review to make sure I’m doing things right!)—I’m interested in getting things done!

Okay…but let’s talk about that “social media” stuff.

This is the part a lot of leaders I know resist. Many don’t even want to be on social media, let alone actively writing and posting and designing content for social platforms. And that’s where I feel they’re making a grave mistake.

Where is the audience you want to reach?

Where are they getting their information?

Where are they learning about the topic you’re working to share?

Where are the discussions about that topic happening?

Chances are pretty good that a great deal of that audience and the conversations they’re having are online, or at least start online. And even if your content doesn’t start out on social, that’s where it scales. That’s where you build community. That’s where the conversations are happening.

A good journal article might be read by a couple hundred people if you’re lucky. A thoughtful social post might be read by tens of thousands—including the next generation of leaders who might never hear what you’re saying otherwise.

Even articles in traditional media matter the most when they’re shared.

Social media is where leaders spark discussions, share insights, test ideas, reduce barriers to understanding, show their personality and humanity, connect with other practitioners, and build trust.

You don’t have to be flashy or self-promotional or to overshare or become an “influencer.” You just have to show up with clarity, curiosity, and something to say.

Writing helps teach, and teaching is a part of leadership you can’t afford to ignore.

Great leaders are teachers—not formally maybe, but it’s a big part of what we do. We pass on what we know to our teams and those we mentor and nurture others’ growth through sharing and discussion.

Writing helps you teach at scale. If leading is about lifting others up, writing is one of the most accessible lifts there is.

Writing online just expands that. It captures your experience in a form that others can learn from and expands the reach of your mentorship. It preserves insights—for you as well!—that might otherwise fade or you might forget.

Writing and teaching helps you create a true legacy. We all hope to leave behind our work, but writing gives people a look into your thinking and motivation, not just the things you did.

And if your words can help people understand something at the moment they need it, or help them make a better decision? That’s lasting leadership.

Getting started is easy.

You don’t have to write a book or even an article, and while some people are going to tell you to write daily posts, I don’t recommend that. Don’t set expectations that become a chore, or force you to churn out content just to have content.

Start small. Set a daily goal.

Maybe a paragraph a day. A thought. A story. A question.

A friend of mine threw out a challenge to a bunch of us to write 1500 words a day. That’s about the length of one of the articles in The Talent Code. But that doesn’t mean we’re writing an article every day. It could be a LinkedIn post and a journal reflection. 1500 words on a book chapter or a larger format article. Part of a white paper or information paper for my leadership. Comments on a few dozen posts others shared. Part of a novel. Anything.

That got me into the habit of pulling up a Google Doc daily and just pouring words out. Sometimes they were just for me, but sometimes they turned into more fully formed thoughts that became posts on social media, articles for The Talent Code, articles for other publications, or the frame for research articles I’d submit.

Which brings me to the next recommendation.

Be consistent and regular in your writing.

Just get into the habit. You get better at writing by writing, and figuring out how you like to write.

Do you like to be by yourself, undisturbed, in a home office or a library or a quiet place, or do you like to have all kinds of activity and music around you, in a coffee shop (or in my case, I’m sitting in a bar in the airport with a burger and a beer and classic rock, writing this article).

Do you start with structure and outlines and story maps? Or do you just need to get some words down on the page and free write a little before you figure out what you really want to write about?

Do you start from the beginning and meticulously work through what you’re writing to make sure it flows, or do you start in the middle and figure out the introduction once you’ve hit the rest?

There is no right way to write. There is a right way for you, though, a way that produces your best and clearest thoughts, and while you can research and take workshops and do a lot of things to figure out what that is, I find the best way to figure out how to write is just…to write.

And as a leader, write down the things you wish someone had told you earlier.

I often tell the leaders I mentor that the best thing they can do is be the leader they wish they had. The one who pushed them to be better, the one who cared about how they were doing and how they progressed, the one who advocated for them or taught them how to advocate for themselves.

You can do that through writing. Pass on what you learned in a way that’s digestible by those who read it. Let them understand why you did a thing or why something resonated so that they can make an informed decision about whether it fits them.

If you want to lead in today’s world, write.

Professionally. Publicly. Boldly. Generously. Often.

As much fun as it is to be a public speaker, people forget what you say. And the people who shape the future won’t be the ones who just talk the most.

They’re the ones who write.

So let’s do this. What will you write about today?