As companies begin re-assessing their business strategy in these current times of uncertainty, its important to think about market leadership.   In the book Mavericks at Work, the authors propose that the only true form of market leadership is thought leadership.

They suggest asking yourself 5 questions:

1. Do you have a distinctive and disruptive sense of purpose?
2. Do you have a vocabulary of competition that is unique to your industry and compelling to both employees and customers? (an ‘only spoken here’ vocabulary)
3. Are you prepared to reject opportunities that offer short term benefits but distract from the long term goal?
4. Can you be provocative without creating a backlash? (within your own organization or from competition)
5. If your company went out of business tomorrow who would really miss you and why?

Given our current climate, the last question seems to be particularly noteworthy.  How would your business answer these questions?  If you are in the media industry, how can use these questions to redefine business practices and set yourself up to weather the storm and even grow?