Leaders, Get on the Same Page with Your Passion

I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “When Entrepreneurial Passion Backfires.” The article acknowledges that passion is one of those leading indicators of success for an entrepreneur, which makes a lot of sense right? But, what about for entrepreneurial teams when their is passion diversity?

Passion diversity shows up in two ways. First, there can be differing levels of passion which they found to negatively impact short-term goals. Second, there can be differing focus for each leader's high passion which they found to have a negative impact on long-term goals.

We see both at Results On Purpose Coaching when we engage with new leadership teams. First of all, it is differing levels of passion is quite common in that not everyone is passionate about doing the the work and maintaining the discipline required to build a world-class business.

Fortunately creating clarity of expectations often leads these team members to request a different role not on the senior leadership team. Also, the planning process and accountability for execution quickly smokes out those who are less passionate. For example, they are the leaders that don't document their quarterly plans in a timely fashion. They are slow or vague about reporting their progress. And they struggle to keep up with the performance coaching of their own team members.

Those with less passion are less accountable and will deliver less to the company. They can be frustrating or even demotivating to others and they are an anchor to the growth of the business.

We also see at Results On Purpose Coaching those teams that have leaders with high, but diverse passion. In the short-term that passion allows every area to make some fast progress, but in the long-term if leadership teams don't recognize the impact of their passion diversity and reconcile the those differences, they will find themselves working in silos. Of course, the long-term outcomes will be worse.

A simple example looks like this. Early in an organization a passionate sales leader may sell whatever she can to anybody and the passionate operations leader will see that they can make or service whatever gets sold. However, after a period of time (which could last years) they feel they have the breathing room to think about what they should make or what service they should provide and to whom they should sell.

Under these circumstances I have seen sales and marketing leaders recruit and train people to sell to the small business market and build marketing strategies and campaigns targeted at the same market. This reflects their passion for that style of sale or that market. While this is happening the operations side is creating products and services that are too sophisticated or expensive for that market. They in fact reflect that operations leader's passion for the enterprise market. I have also seen the exact opposite.

Again we start with getting clarity. There can only be one Strategic Theory and one Battle Plan. Everyone on the leadership team (and throughout the entire organization) must have a shared passion for both.

If there is confusion in your business, if some of the conversations make no sense, or if the goals seem to carry over from year to year (i.e., the business is stuck), perhaps their is passion diversity holding things back. It’s not a permanent problem. Start asking hard questions and having honest conversations to see if passion diversity is an issue.