Blogging is a great way for leaders to communicate with employees. It fosters community, conversation, learning, and relationships that cross the org chart. If you’re stuck on “What do I write about?” here are a few suggestions.
- Include a link to an interesting news or business article that you read, and share your own perspective on it.
- Did you recently go to a conference or seminar? Share highlights of what you learned.
- Share career advice with employees who aspire to your role.
- Share career advice you wish someone had given you.
- Write about the best mentor, leader, or teacher that you ever had.
- Write about the worst day you ever had at work, and what you learned from it.
- Is this the career you planned to be in, or are you surprised by where you ended up? Discuss.
- Write a “day in the life” journal of either a typical day, or a unique one.
- Write about how one of your hobbies or outside interests (sports, family, gardening, etc.) has shaped your professional perspective.
- Give your own take on a broad business topic, e.g., customer service, personal accountability, planning, time management.
- Take one of your organization’s values or principles and explain what it means to you. Depending on how many values your company has, this could be a series of multiple blogs.
- Tell us how you do that thing that makes others ask, “How did you do that?”
- Share the most important things you learned in college or graduate school, now that you’re X years after graduation.
- Compare and contrast: What you thought effective leadership was at the beginning of your career, versus what you value today.
- Share the spotlight: Celebrate the success of a team or work group by telling their story.
- Make a list, e.g.: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Me, 5 Mistakes New Leaders Often Make, or 7 Tips for Presenting to Executives.
- Visit one of your company’s stores or branches where you don’t know anybody, or call the service center. Write about your experience from a customer’s perspective. (Only mention employees by name if your feedback is positive)
- Do the above, but with a competitor.
- Test-drive a new technology, such as Google Glass or 3D printing, and write about your experience.
- Compile a list of the mobile apps that you can’t live without.
- List 3-5 books that greatly influenced you, and explain why.
- Share your goals (personal, professional, or both) for a specific future timeframe – 3 months, 1 year, 10 years.
- Write a “Throwback Thursday” entry – Tell us about something interesting that happened to you a long time ago.
- Is this your first blog? Acknowledge your newness and tell your readers why you decided to start blogging, and how it feels to be putting your words out in this format for the first time.
- Turn it around: Pose a question you find interesting, invite readers to answer in the comments, then join in the conversation by commenting on your own blog.
5 Bonus Tips!
- The tone of your blog should be conversational, friendly, and sincere. Write in the same voice you would address your employees in a meeting or via email.
- Even if you’re brand new to this, you already have the skills to do it well. If you can write a clear email or present before a group in a meeting, you’re over halfway to a great blog.
- Break up your text visually with frequent paragraph breaks, subsections, bulleted lists, or (better yet!) photos. Big text blocks are ugly and hard to read.
- Personal stories are always more interesting than vague platitudes.
- Vulnerability is the new black for leaders.