Passion Polarises People

We often enjoy the privilege of working with fast-growing businesses and their emerging leadership teams as most have realised that the rate of growth of their leaders controls the rate of growth of their business.

An interesting point emerged from one recent leaders’ group call, and it fits nicely into our positive theme this month:

In the Group we were talking about how a leader’s passion “polarises people” by drawing the positive, committed team members even closer to the mission while, at the same time, threatening the comfort zone created by the uncommitted for their own comfort (and at the expense of the organisation).

After a bit of reflection, one of the emerging Leaders came back and said, “One of the challenges for some leaders (me included) will be in the area of ‘passion’ – it’s not something which always come naturally to some people.”

I thought that was a great point to have raised. It prompted a bit of deep thinking and resulted in the following response:

When it comes to “passion”, I suspect we all experience a sense of deep and profound belief in, and commitment to, different “values” (i.e. what’s important to us in any specific context), but I also suspect that this experience rises within each of us in a different way, and is certainly given expression by each of us according to a blend of both our personality and our conditioning. Some of us are very animated and vocal, while others may burn quietly with a deep flame.

I feel that regardless of just how we show we care about something, when we find ourselves caste in a leadership role, we need to be prepared to allow others to see and to know that fact about us.

Sometimes it’s not cool to be ‘cool’.

I feel that many of the most successful but less-naturally-demonstrative leaders realise that fact at some stage in their evolution, and step beyond it to ensure that those they seek to influence can see, hear and feel some surface evidence of their deeper flame.

Again, I think that in choosing, for the benefit of your team, to externalise feelings that you would more naturally keep to yourself, you must do so in a manner that is more a “reflection of a previously-undisplayed aspect of your true self”, rather than an “act” or a parody of someone else. (Sort of “to thine own self be true” with a dash of “but be prepared to let your hair down a bit so that others can better understand how you truly feel”).

This is not a lot different to what an actor does on a stage; while they maintain the integrity of the character and of the script, they exaggerate natural actions and give extreme expression to emotion so that the audience doesn’t miss the message! When you lead, you are simply playing a role in the current scheme of things, and in that sense you are called upon to do what the role – and your audience – requires of you.

Those of you who are “technicians who have been promoted to being leaders” (see earlier article) and who know a lot about the technical issues on which you are leading, may find real value in displaying your degree of emotional commitment, as it highlights the meaning behind the expression: No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

So, would this be a good time to get in touch with your own passion? Pin your heart on your sleeve? Show your team how much you care?

What might come of that? Or …

Is it time you had a talk to us about how we can facilitate the growth of leadership skills among your team, and the evolution of your business as a natural consequence of that? Email me, please, for more information on our team building services.