I recently observed that “the term ‘trust’ is almost a mandated component of any CPA ‘thought leadership’ publication,” and that started me thinking about just how much so-called ‘thought leadership’ is out there. And then the Ontario Securities Commission published Insights on the OSC Staff’s Approach to Sustainable Finance   a publication that “builds on the work that the OSC has done to date around sustainable finance and sets out our approach for the coming years.” It sets out three so-called “pillars,” including “Demonstrating thought leadership and seeking to be an influential and trusted voice in sustainable finance regulation.” Which made me think that, arguably, announcing that one intends to demonstrate thought leadership is an indicator that those thoughts are going to be more about self-branding than effecting substantial external change, comparable to how a latter-day self-described “influencer” is likely only to have the most ephemeral and wispy kind of influence…

I did conduct a search of the 800 entries on this blog to see whether I’d ever claimed to be engaging in thought leadership myself, and can confirm I haven’t, if only because as Jerry Lewis said in The King of Comedy, “You don’t say, hey folks, here’s the punchline, you just do the punchline.” But a search as of October 2025 suggests that the term is used 78 times on the OSC website. It’s used 72 times on the CPA Ontario website and 97 times on CPA Canada’s (albeit that many of those citations are as part of a job title), suggesting these organizations think there’s lots of capacity out there to absorb and grow from all these thoughts…

We might pause to reflect though that thought leadership isn’t inherently virtuous. The most effective thought leader of our time is certainly Donald Trump, in that tens of millions of people perceive aspects of the world in a way that would be at least somewhat different if he had never existed. The organizations I just mentioned aren’t likely to come up with anything of Trump-level malignity (leaving aside that CPA Ontario’s most recent – and not un-Trumpian – big thought involved blowing up the structure of Canadian accounting) but the example may illustrate how claims to thought leadership should be treated with healthy skepticism, as in: Convince me why your thoughts should take up any of my precious time? And also: Who are you anyway, to lay claim to any position of leadership, thought-related or otherwise?

That’s especially as the thoughts in question tend to be fundamentally small and repetitive ones: that CPAs and others could do a lot to shape a particular area (and implicitly to make money out of it), if they knew anything about it; that some new technology or practice would benefit from a systematic approach to risk management and governance, to identifying opportunities and threats. And such publications often end up seeming somewhat isolated and unintegrated into broader movements and conversations. For example, we looked a few years ago at CPA Ontario’s CPAs and the New Social Contract: The Rise of the Warrior Accountant, which suggested “that Ontario’s professional accountants should step up to the plate and use their expertise in measuring and disclosing company information to improve sustainability reporting.” As far as I can tell, CPA Ontario didn’t do much after that to further promulgate the “warrior accountant” concept, not even when sustainability reporting still seemed to be gathering momentum.

That title also illustrates another point, that thought leadership as it’s generally conceived carries a positive, boosterish quality. But in the age of Trump, decision-critical input is more likely to flow from systematic pessimism. The OSC’s first demonstration of thought leadership following the “Insights” document was an immediately forgettable item titled A Behavioural Insights Analysis of the Effects of Environmental, Social, and Governance Factor (ESG) Disclosure and Advertising on Retail Investors. This yielded as recommendations: Strive towards Clarity in ESG Definitions and Ratings (Clarity around or potential standardization of ESG ratings to eliminate confusion and prevent greenwashing); Educate Investors (Improve retail investors’ understanding of ESG investing through education and outreach); and Strengthen Advisor Proficiency (Promote financial advisors training on ESG investing to better support their clients.) A shopworn trio of notions at best…

I’ve said before that one of Trump’s most toxic characteristics (if there were any point in trying to rank them) is his disregard for science and empiricism, for rationality itself, but such is the new guiding spirit of the US, and the rest of us can hardly avoid getting dragged into the turmoil. Trump’s followers trust him in part because of his destructive rejection of the established order, not despite it: in such a world, the volume of thought leadership may continue to grow, but its capacity to shape the future – especially in its prevailing technocratic, anodyne form – will only dwindle…

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.