I welcome you to my corner this week, my good people. I’m confident that you had a good week and you are ready to make the best of your writing this week. Know for certain that you are able and that I am just one email away if the idea of seeking help ever occurs to you.

Writing Is a Leadership Act

This week, I want to discuss this everlasting myth that writing is the exclusive preserve of the gifted, artistic or inspired. Some believe that it is some creative hobby that you do when you have a poetic streak and so much time to actualise it. In other words, if you do not consider yourself talented, you shouldn’t start writing. This has kept so many experienced, thoughtful and competent people silent for so long, but I think you should reconsider. Writing, in my opinion, especially non-fiction writing, is not primarily a creative act but an act of leadership, of taking responsibility.

Let me start by suggesting something, which you are of course, free to disagree with. When you have lived for several years, worked for a fairly long time and failed once or twice, especially publicly, and then succeeded, you carry insight. This insight is social capital, not private property. It dies with you unless you organise it, articulate it and release it to the public domain. Worse, is that when you do not, some noisemakers will take your place. Therefore, writing is the deliberate act of taking responsibility for your ideas about issues and situations.

Writing Is Ownership

I have heard people say that there are various ways of expressing your ideas, and I agree. You could speak or post on social media, for instance, but how effective are these methods? If you speak, for instance, your ideas evaporate over time, and when you post, they are mostly scattered. However, the deliberate act of writing makes you sit with your experiences and shape them into arguments, reflections, narratives and possibly solutions. You will be saying, this is what I have seen, this is what I have tested, and this is my conclusion from them all. That way, you are declaring ownership of your experiences.

Writing makes you confront your own thinking; it requires coherence, it demands intellectual honesty. All of these take you away from the everyday professional life where people thrive on borrowed language, forward trends, and just echo popular opinion. Writing takes you out of that comfort zone, where many accomplished people hibernate. It shows that you truly know what you claim to know. It could indeed be an uncomfortable situation, but that is what leadership is all about.

Silence Is Not Neutral

I know that many people hesitate to write because they fear criticism. They worry about public scrutiny and prospects that they will be misunderstood. But I tell such people that even silence has its cost for society and ultimately, for these knowledgeable but timid people.

When people who have experience, people who are thoughtful, choose to be quiet, public discourse will be shaped by the loudest, not necessarily the wisest. So you have the simplistic forcing their ideas on us and shallow commentaries take centre stage, especially these days when people can master algorithms.

Media, law, governance, education, technology, business, health, entertainment, and all fields are shaped by those who document their perspectives. When people with experience choose not to write, charlatans will define the narrative. While the people who ought to write feel safe in their silence, authority erodes and their influence wanes. They forfeit the opportunity to guide younger professionals who need credible voices to find their path. At the end of the day, they become irrelevant and miss the opportunity to institute legacy! That is the greatest tragedy of all.

Books Shape Memory

The other thing is that books shape memory like no other form of writing or communicating your ideas does. Articles inform the moment, speeches bring momentary energy into the room, social media posts spark conversations, but books outlive the news cycle. It endures beyond the viral posts and becomes a reference point in public debate, classrooms or even boardrooms. Books sit on library shelves, and they get cited, quoted or even contested. When you write a book based on your experience, you are contributing to the archives of your profession and society. Without written records, industries drift, narratives get distorted, and history becomes selective. Writing is protecting your society from amnesia, so when you write, you are doing something for posterity. Your work becomes a scaffolding for the future.

Writing Is Service

Just as leadership, writing is a service. You write so that someone who is coming behind you in the profession, situation or experience can avoid the mistakes that you made. You write so policy makers understand the implications of their actions or inactions. You write so that some professional standards will be maintained or developed. You write so that young people have live models of integrity. Writing is not vanity or showing off; it is stewardship, it is contributing your quota to making society better. If you have ever navigated complex systems, managed crises, built institutions, reformed processes, or observed patterns over decades, your silence deprives others of your tested insight. And that is a disservice.

Authority Is Built on Articulation

If you are one of those professionals who one day seek influence, if you desire opportunities to deliver keynotes, media commentaries and such roles, you must understand that influence rarely grows through private competence alone. It grows from visible thought-sharing. Writing a book creates a body of work, which creates authority and ultimately attracts trust. When your ideas become documented, searchable and shareable, your voice travels to rooms you can possibly never physically enter. It shapes conversations you may never attend and opens doors that networking alone cannot. Now that the world is saturated with content, credibility belongs to those who think deeply and communicate clearly. Your book can do this for you!

So, what am I saying?

If you have credible experience, you do not need to be literary, flamboyant or unnecessarily controversial to write a book. Your real, tested, reflective experience is enough for that book. Leadership is not only about directing institutions. It is about shaping ideas, and ideas that are not written are ideas that do not travel. They add nothing to the world and die with their owners. So, if you have experience, you have a responsibility to write.

If you think this is you and you need help with sharpening your ideas or structuring your book, reply to this email and let’s talk about it. I’ll be glad to hold your hand and walk the road with you.

Have a great week.