Identifying Opinion Leaders to Facilitate Change

Everett Rogers's theories of how innovations are diffused within communities continue to provide insight into how change can be facilitated and hastened (2003). His theories contain information on what characteristics of an innovation make it easier or harder to adopt, characteristics of communities that make them more or less likely to accept change, the speed at which people adopt innovations, and the characteristics of adopters at each stage (Rogers, 2003). For those who wish to lead or manage change, one subset of adopters is of particular interest--opinion leaders. An opinion leader, as described by Rogers, is someone within a community who is in social contact with a number of people and who is widely respected for good decisions (Rogers, 2003). This article highlights Rogers's descriptions of characteristics in four areas of behavior indicative of opinion leaders, openness, rational decisionmaking, self-monitoring, and sociability. This article also provides information on the Opinion Leadership Index (OLI), an instrument that can be used to identify potential opinion leaders, individuals with the right combination of skills and attitudes to become opinion leaders within their community as soon as their community knows them well enough to trust their opinions. A copy of the OLI meant to be administered using paper and pencil is provided in the appendix.