The author shared an experience that arose after publishing a post on LinkedIn about searching for change management specialists. He expected to receive a few responses and useful connections, but instead received a huge number of messages from people all over the world.
Initially, the author was encouraged by this response. However, analyzing the received messages, he noticed a striking similarity in many of them. Despite the fact that the people represented different countries, their presentations were professionally composed and carefully thought out, likely with the help of artificial intelligence, but they revealed little about the person's personality or their potential contribution to the dialogue.
This made the author think about methods to increase the visibility of executives in marketing and communications. In recent years, companies have actively encouraged business leaders to become more active on LinkedIn: sharing their experience, commenting on industry events, and building a recognizable personal brand. In many organizations, this has turned into a formal communication strategy, including content calendars, publication schedules, and engagement targets.
There are strong reasons for this approach: clients want to understand the people behind the companies, and journalists and industry peers value access to leaders who have something useful to discuss. However, the author expresses concern that in the pursuit of making executives more visible, the focus has shifted to the frequency of their appearance rather than the real value they bring.
Creating a Content Machine
Working in the field of marketing and communications, the author admits his significant role in this situation. It is specialists who create content plans for executives, encourage them to publish materials regularly, and track which topics attract the most attention. When some content performs well, there is a natural desire to repeat that success.
Nevertheless, the author wonders if too much focus has been placed on maintaining the visibility of executives, forgetting the ultimate goal of that visibility. The pressure associated with the need for constant content creation is growing. An Adobe study for 2026 showed that 83% of marketers believe that the demand for content has increased at least twofold in the last two years.
Artificial intelligence has simplified this process: several notes can be turned into a LinkedIn post, an article can be developed based on a short interview, or numerous variations of the same message can be generated in minutes. The author himself uses AI and values the time savings, but worries about the consequences when content creation becomes easier than developing the thoughts behind it.
It has become very easy to create professionally sounding messages, but sometimes this process eliminates the individuality, experience, and opinions that originally made people interesting. When viewing executive content on LinkedIn, similar themes about leadership, sustainability, teamwork, and learning from failures are often encountered. Although these topics are important, after reading a large amount of such material, it becomes difficult to remember who said what.
The author is confident that many of these executives possess fascinating experiences and strong convictions because they have spent years building businesses, managing complex situations, and learning from mistakes. Nevertheless, their published content does not always reflect this depth of knowledge. Instead, a version of leadership often appears that seems safe and sterilized. Everyone agrees that people and culture are important, and businesses need to adapt; no one disputes anything, and frankly, nothing they say is memorable.
The author believes that it is necessary to distinguish between recognition based on frequency of appearance in the feed and the respect that comes from the influence of ideas on other people's thinking. According to the 2025 Edelman and LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, 64% of 'hidden decision-makers'—people who influence purchases without having the final vote—trust thought leadership more than traditional product information when evaluating company opportunities.
The author suggests that marketing teams should spend more time contemplating the reputation they want to help build for the executive, instead of focusing solely on what this person should publish next week. If they were asked what they would like the executive to be known for in three years, their conversations would look completely different. They would study the executive's experience, the difficulties they faced, and the problems that concern them. They would ask about the direction the industry is moving in, what mistakes companies are making, and what they have learned that could truly help others.
Furthermore, it is necessary to be prepared to challenge the executive's statements. Sometimes the answer sounds reasonable but lacks significant substance. Instead of turning it into a polished article, one should ask the executive to explain what they mean or provide an example.
The author found that the most interesting part of the conversation is not always the answer to the initial question; sometimes it is what someone says almost incidentally, without realizing that their experience offers a different perspective.
LinkedIn Should Support Dialogue
The author is not calling for executives to completely abandon using LinkedIn. His own experience reminded him how quickly the platform can connect people who would otherwise never meet. However, LinkedIn should only be part of a broader strategy. An executive's ideas can be explored through articles, media interviews, research, industry events, and client interactions. LinkedIn can then help disseminate these ideas and sustain the discussion.
It is also necessary to be more careful about what is measured. Views show whether content reaches an audience, but are journalists seeking comments from the executive? Are they invited to industry discussions? Are clients responding to the ideas they shared?
The author realizes that he is questioning an approach that people in his own profession helped build, including himself. He also understands the pressure associated with the need for constant content production when there are multiple channels.
He prefers to help leaders publish fewer, but more meaningful pieces that people will remember, rather than seeing their expertise reduced to another LinkedIn post created simply to fill a content calendar.
