I came up with the Executive Thinker one day when describing myself to somebody at work. I didn't think much about it at the time, but later on I decided to do a JD on what an executive thinker would do. It turns out that, in a nutshell, you must be able to understand everything in your job environment and a bucket load of general knowledge and common sense.You see, an E.T. Doesn't need to know the intricacies of the tasks that need to be performed, but just whether or not it can be done or more accurately whether there is somebody that can perform the task. If you think about it is like having somebody that can get the bigger picture of things and can find ways to instruct others in order to accomplish the task.
In my environment I know how the business operates and I know at least one person in all the departments in the organisation. I also have a high level and broad knowledge about information technology. This puts me in a situation to resolve or find a resolution to 99% of the problems that come my way and I find that I have become the problem "search engine" at our organisation.
The best part of this is that the more I am approached and the more solutions that I put out there the more knowledgeable I get and my solutions become more effective and efficient. This is not rocket science but a simple ability to be practical. If you can achieve this and also have the ability to retain the knowledge you will become a pillar to lean on at your organisation, making yourself indisposable.
But the trick to retaining your status as Executive Thinker is to better yourself, i.e. you have to know every aspect of your organisation, whether it be mail room services to even HR issues, you should know about it, maybe not the details but the overall big picture. Over time you will get to know the intricacies and you will find yourself being able to perform anybodies task at your organisation.
Always find better ways to do things, they usually become "your baby" and you will find that the department or the organisation will start depending on you. After a while you should look at applying for jobs outside of your organisation and eventually settle at a more corporate environment this is where you can make your mark as an E.T. You can start as being a fry cook at a take away, before long you will be able to stand in as manager and one even be the manager, and then you can move up from there.