I agree with this very strongly. It's similar to what happened with blogging. Early on, blogging was people who knew how to do something very well writing about their knowledge and experience. Then it became profitable and the filler appeared, which is mostly people who have no actual useful knowledge talking about what other people are doing, or about nothing at all. The transition from "engineers who write blogs" to "bloggers".
The same thing has happened with "thought leadership". There was, and still is really, a group of people who do the work and have useful insight. They became high profile, and presumably made money on it, and now the filler has appeared. Self-professed thought leaders who are endless sources of bombastic buzz words and constant self-marketing.
It's a natural pattern, I guess. Something becomes profitable and profit-seekers without much actual value show up. I think the thing for those who can do is to just ignore it and continue creating things of value. Maybe also guide junior engineers on the path of being actually effective and ignoring the crud.
The same thing has happened with "thought leadership". There was, and still is really, a group of people who do the work and have useful insight. They became high profile, and presumably made money on it, and now the filler has appeared. Self-professed thought leaders who are endless sources of bombastic buzz words and constant self-marketing.
It's a natural pattern, I guess. Something becomes profitable and profit-seekers without much actual value show up. I think the thing for those who can do is to just ignore it and continue creating things of value. Maybe also guide junior engineers on the path of being actually effective and ignoring the crud.