Passion is Required for a Winning Culture

By Nathan Jamail

Passion is one of those words that many people love to use but very rarely do they actually demonstrate it themselves.  It easily can be the reason for almost any person or organization’s success.  Passion fuels everything good about a person or an organization, so why is it so hard to find people that are passionate about their jobs or the product or service they sell? 

In most organizations, every leader can name a few of their great employees or bosses that have immense passion and will state 100% of the time they wish that all of their employees would have that same passion.  The same can be said of employees who wish their leader had more passion.  Although not everybody can be passionate about their job or their business because some people just do not follow their passion (rather they follow a paycheck), as a leader one should strive to have most employees passionate about what they do.  This is not an easy concept, but most things that make people and organizations great are not easy – that is why they are great.   There are a few things that individuals and leaders can do to make passion a mandatory part of their culture.

Do something you love: A person once said that you couldn’t really do what you want and will probably never get a job you love so just find one that pays well and try to learn to like it.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.   There are millions of ways to make a living in this world, so do something you love or love what you do.  A person’s passion will create value for customers, resulting in revenue from a customer or organization. In some cases, a person may not be passionate about the actual product or service they sell, rather they are passionate about the task of selling, helping customers or having personal success. 

Being passionate has very little to do with what a person does and everything to do with why a person does it.  Every decision made in life (hiring decisions, buying decisions, career decisions, etc.) can be based on our emotions-. Every person and every leader should strive to find the passion in their jobs and careers.  People work for money, but when a person has passion for their work, they will gain a lot more than just money.

Make passion a job requirement: Some could argue that passion and attitude are subjective and cannot be measured or fairly managed, which could be true in some cases. Most leaders can look at their team and easily identify the members that are passionate about their career and the organization, and in almost every case, those people are the most successful.  The leader’s job is to help those without passion find it in their current role or help them find a role within the organization they can be passionate about.

If a leader wants their entire organization to be passionate about their job, they must make it mandatory.  How serious should a leader be about making passion mandatory?  Should a leader fire their top performer if they lack passion and don’t have a desire to be better regardless of their results?  In most cases they won’t, but in time that top performer’s results may decline as the results catch up with their lack of passion.

Encourage passion: Passion is not an emotion that is taught, rather it is the result of a person doing the right job or having the right career.  Leaders don’t necessarily have to mandate passion out of each person like being told to get to work on time, but they should recognize those individuals that lack the passion and strive to help them find it in their position. In today’s economy it is not always enough to do a good job or know your business. A person and organization must have the passion to pass on to others.  Passion is the fuel for an organizations success no matter what industry, region or economy one is in.

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