A long while ago, I came across an idea from The Selfish Gene that has increasingly felt relevant to how we communicate as leaders today.
It’s the idea of a meme, not in the internet sense, but as an idea that moves, replicates, adapts and spreads. And importantly, the ideas that spread most effectively aren’t always the most accurate or the most useful. They’re the ones best suited to travel.
They are often simple, emotional, or easy to take a side on. Truth, on its own, doesn’t guarantee movement unfortunately.
When you look at the internet through that lens, a pattern becomes obvious.
A reaction becomes a post, and then a post becomes a narrative. A narrative starts shaping people’s perception, often before it’s fully understood. And most of the time, there’s no bad intent behind it. It’s people responding quickly, sharing a perspective, or wanting to contribute to what feels important in the moment.
That’s a very human instinct. But at scale, it has consequences.
Because as leaders, we’re amplifying ideas, not just expressing them.
This is where the challenge lies.
Today, you can:
- Stay measured and say what’s reasonable, and often be overlooked
- Or react quickly with something sharp and emotionally charged, and be seen
Both can get attention, but only one consistently builds trust.
There is a third option, and it’s closer to what The organisation TED understood early.
They didn’t optimise for speed, but focused on ideas worth spreading.
(If you have aspirations for the TED stage check out my free resources here.)
That distinction matters in leadership, because influence is about what happens when something spreads. So the solution here is definitely not to mute yourself, speak less or care less.
But shaping your thoughts more before sharing.
Lately, before posting or responding, I ask: Is this just my first reaction or is there something here worth shaping?
That’s where I’ve been developing the idea of Thought-Bait™ as a discipline.
The goal isn’t to remove conviction but to direct it. To take an initial reaction and refine it into something clearer, more considered, and more useful to the people who encounter it.
Something that doesn’t just travel because it provokes.
But because it shifts thinking, expands minds, helps people see things differently, chew things over, think more deeply, and ultimately take action as a force for good.
Over time, this creates a very different pattern. People begin to recognise that when you speak, it’s been thought through and that’s where leadership shifts from being noticed to being trusted. Attention is readily available, but trust is built in the pattern.
In the consistency of how you think, not just how often you speak.
If ideas really are contagious—and I think they are—then leadership carries a responsibility. Every time you share a perspective, you’re playing a role in what moves forward.
Anyone can get attention. Very few people become worth listening to. And more often than not, the difference is what happens in the moment before something is shared.
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