Last week, I published a LinkedIn post looking to connect with experienced change management professionals. I expected a few responses and perhaps some useful introductions. What I did not expect was the number of messages that followed, with people from around the world reaching out to introduce themselves and start conversations.
Initially, I was encouraged by the response. But as I worked through the messages, I started noticing something interesting. Despite coming from different people in different countries, many of the introductions sounded remarkably similar. They were professional, carefully worded and clearly intended to make a good impression (possibly with AI’s help), but very few gave me a sense of the person behind the message or what they could bring to the conversation.
It got me thinking about how we approach executive visibility in marketing and communications.
Over the past few years, we have encouraged business leaders to become increasingly active on LinkedIn. We want them to share their experiences, comment on industry developments and build a recognisable personal brand. In many organisations, this has become a formal communications strategy, complete with content calendars, posting schedules and engagement targets.
There are good reasons for doing this. Customers want to understand the people leading the businesses they work with, while journalists and industry peers value access to leaders with something useful to contribute. My concern is that, in our efforts to make executives more visible, we may have started paying more attention to how often they are seen than to what people actually learn from them.
We created the content machine
I work in marketing and communications, so I have to acknowledge that we have played a big part in creating this situation. We build executive content calendars, encourage leaders to post regularly and measure which topics generate engagement. When something performs well, we naturally want to repeat that success.
But I wonder whether we have become so focused on keeping executives visible that we have forgotten what we want that visibility to achieve. The pressure to produce content is certainly growing. Adobe’s 2026 research found that 83% of marketers believe demand for content has at least doubled over the past two years.
AI has made it easier to keep up. We can turn a few notes into a LinkedIn post, develop an article from a short interview or create several versions of the same message in minutes. I use AI myself and appreciate the time it saves. But I worry about what happens when producing content becomes easier than developing the thinking behind it.
We have become very good at making people sound professional, but sometimes that process removes the personality, experience and opinions that made them interesting in the first place.
When I look at executive content on LinkedIn, I often see similar messages about leadership, resilience, teamwork and learning from failure. These are worthwhile subjects, but after reading enough of them, it becomes difficult to remember who said what.
I am sure many of these executives have fascinating experiences and strong opinions. They have spent years building businesses, managing difficult situations and learning from mistakes. Yet their published content does not always reflect that depth of knowledge.
Instead, we sometimes end up with a version of leadership that feels safe and sanitised. Everyone agrees that people matter, culture matters and businesses need to adapt. No one challenges anything and, to be honest, nothing they say is very memorable. I think we need to distinguish between somebody being recognised because they appear frequently in our feeds and somebody being respected because their ideas have influenced how others think.
The 2025 Edelman and LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 64% of “hidden decision-makers” – people who influence purchasing decisions without having the final say – trust thought leadership more than traditional product information when assessing a company’s capabilities. People clearly value access to expertise, but leaders need to communicate it.
I would like marketing teams to spend more time thinking about the reputation they want to help an executive build, rather than concentrating primarily on what that person should publish next week. If we asked what we wanted a CEO to be known for three years from now, our conversations with them would look very different.
We would spend more time understanding their experiences, the challenges they have faced and the issues they care about. We would ask where they think their industry is heading, what businesses are getting wrong and what they have learned that could genuinely help somebody else.
We would also have to be willing to challenge them. Sometimes an executive gives us an answer that sounds reasonable but says very little. Instead of turning it into a polished article, we should ask them to explain what they mean or give us an example.
I have found that the most interesting part of a conversation is not always the answer to the original question. Sometimes it is something somebody says almost in passing, without realising that their experience offers a different perspective.
LinkedIn should support the conversation
I am certainly not suggesting that executives stop using LinkedIn. My own experience reminded me how quickly the platform can connect people who might otherwise never cross paths.
But it should be one part of a broader strategy. An executive’s ideas can be explored through articles, media interviews, research, industry events and conversations with customers. LinkedIn can then help share those ideas and keep the discussion going.
We should also think more carefully about what we measure. Impressions tell us whether content is reaching people, but are journalists approaching the executive for comment? Are they being invited into industry discussions? Are customers referring to ideas they have shared?
I realise I am questioning an approach that people in my own profession, including me, have helped build. I also understand the pressure to keep producing content when so many channels are involved.
We work with leaders who have years of experience, valuable knowledge and opinions worth sharing. I would rather help them publish fewer, more meaningful pieces that people remember than see their expertise reduced to another LinkedIn post created simply to fill a content calendar.
- The author, Natania Pio, is marketing and communications executive associate at Change Logic
- Read more articles by Change Logic on TechCentral
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