The most dangerous words I have heard in every company I have worked at in the last 20 years are “Passion” and “Enthusiasm”. So used, abused, misused, it’s become the magic “halo” that all corporate “ladder climbers” wear as they rise in a company. Also these traits do seem to be more prevalent in our corporate leaders, those being Directors, VP’s and above. You can find them scattered in CV’s, dropped into conversations, documents and presentations. Ordinarily these “Pearls” are used beyond belief, because they believe it “defines” them and the work they do. But make no mistake. It IS NOT a leadership style.
Frankly, I am utterly sick and tired of hearing these 2 words, for so many years by so many people who simply do not understand what they really mean. And these same people who embrace these personal traits so highly, are exactly the same ones who allow other essential traits to atrophy. As a result, honesty takes a back seat to dishonesty. They wont take responsibility for their actions, decisions. Furthermore, they are not adaptable, preferring things are always done their way. Incompatible attitude, inconsistent with traits such as patience, courage, loyalty, and compassion. They fall on the wayside as “non-essential” in the search of the holy grail of “passion & enthusiasm”. Accordingly, these are the same culprits who are namely responsible for so many things that go wrong in a company, it’s scary!
Corrupted leadership style?
So what’s the issue with these 2 little jewels? Simple fact is corruption of the meaning over the past 2 decades, especially in business. The most basic definitions of these 2 words (Thank You Oxford) breaks out as follows: –
- Passion: strong and barely controllable emotion; an intense desire or enthusiasm for something; (NB: we can exclude “intense sexual love” from this discussion).
- Enthusiasm: intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval.
Generally embedded in current corporate culture is misapplication of these words to extremes. They have been “re-defined” by businesses in the 21st century into something unhealthy. A “surrogate” so called “leadership style”. Rude or abrupt, you excuse yourself with “Sorry, I’m just passionate about my work”. If you are arrogant and dictatorial, you are just being “enthusiastic”. Work extreme hours and are totally obsessed with a piece of work or project, you claim it’s because of “passion” for the work. Force your teams to work obsessively, you claim your “enthusiasm” is infectious. And yes, they fake findings (lie) then rationalise it down to “enthusiasm” and their desire to succeed.
Now passion and enthusiasm are not necessarily bad things. In philosophy and religion, passion is the instinctive, emotional, primitive drives in a human being. The human being must restrain, channel, develop and sublimate these drives in order to be possessed of wisdom. And one of the prime essentials of enthusiasm lies in that quality called happiness. Yet balance is critical in life and business. And sacrificing many good key traits for the sake of only these 2 traits impairs their perception of reality. The classic definition of psychotic behaviour.
Passion and Enthusiasm in a program
These traits have had a huge detrimental effect in the workplace today in many companies, usually not tracked or measure in terms of loss. As an example you may be able to relate to.
Scenario: The consulting company we hired was brought in to help the company cut costs based on change strategies. After several months of investigation, it was advised that “significant” cost savings could be achieved in a key change program of work. The program would involve using back end CRM integration with some of our key suppliers. The end result would be improved quality of service, ability to scale back resources, improve fault resolution times. Our VP was handed this piece of work and told to “run with it”. A very excitable, passionate, enthusiastic chap as he was often fond of pointing out to us. With no basis of comparison, he arbitrarily stated we could get this program “kicked off” within the next 8 weeks.
What happened?
Here are few examples of what really happened in live conversations. In the meantime, let’s call the Boss, “Tiberius”. An avid believer in the “passion & enthusiasm” leadership style: –
- So Tiberius calls a meeting with his 5 person team, starts off with saying “I’m really passionate about this new program”. He then proceeds to outline his plan with “passionate and enthusiasm”. Results were as follows.
- Effect on Teams: Tiberius is expecting overtime. He is rude, aggressive, shows unreasonable behaviour in face of hard facts. Ignores facts if they don’t fit his viewpoint. He ignores timelines if they don’t fit his expectations, ignores effort required, focuses on the goal only.
- Business outcome: Demotivated team, unreliable data and/or deliverables, a rushed job absent of quality. Teams overworked, extreme stress levels, fear, and keen desire in short to find a new Boss!
- In the meeting, Tiberius says: “Sorry, just enthusiastic about my job” as a standard excuse when he talked over people he disagreed with.
- Effect on Teams: Tiberius looks poorly at others who are not “infected” with that same enthusiasm, viewed as obstructive. His definition of “a good worker” as someone with high enthusiasm. He expects deliverables in half the time. His expectation is that others are happy to put in 60 hours a week. He uses the standard excuse to cut off conversations that seem too “realistic” which he views as “being negative”. Coaching or leadership not required as they are natural parts of “enthusiastic behaviour”. Half formed ideas waste time and effort, resulting in a constant shifting set of goals, challenges and deliverables.
- Business outcome: Demotivated team, team members rated unfairly during performance reviews. Poor quality products and services due to rushed work. Fear culture from voicing ideas, overworked, poor training support, excessive wasted time and effort due to lack of focus.
The outcome of too much passion and enthusiasm
(NB: Incidentally, the program was parked after 20 weeks, put into backlog as savings could not be substantiated. Subsequently, 2 team members quit and found other jobs. Furthermore, person days effort wasted (50% effort) = 250 days @ £450 per day = £112,500. “Tiberius” in the meantime found something else more exciting now to occupy his time, and moved onto new work).
In brief, £112K is not a fortune to most companies. Yet in the meantime, consider how many times this happens every day in a large organisation at multiple levels, multiple programs? Consequently, think of the overall impact to a company’s costs, staff retention, demotivated employees, stress, trust, culture, etc., and you will soon see why the concern on this failed leadership style!
Where are you? Who are you?
Passion and enthusiasm have their place in any business or profession. But it’s not a leadership style. It’s a valuable set of behaviours (drives) that can take us far. But the more “passionate and enthusiastic” the person, the greater the dangers. And therefore, the greater the safeguards required to compensate for the lack of other required “good traits”.
You wouldn’t deliberately go hire psychotics from an asylum so why would you accept it in the workplace?
Here are some simple questions that will help you improve with your teams, colleagues, co-workers, peers, superiors: –
- Is work life balance being maintained? Time off in lieu in place? Overtime pay? Recognition?
- Have I been rude to someone? Cutting across them? Shutting them up? Ignoring what they had to say?
- Was I arrogant, discounting other views? Egocentric?
- Are timescales really realistic? Or delusional based on my own beliefs?
- As a rule, am I being fair in rating my team’s skills and strengths? Annual performance reports marked fairly? Unfair bias? Thereby rating people higher whom are “passionate, enthusiastic”? Instead of their strengths?
- Do I want quality or quantity? Workload, effort adequately sized? How was this determined? Formula or my own manic thoughts?
- Am I wasting team efforts on “half cooked” ideas? Are they really of value?
- Is the focus and objectives clear? Or do they shift week by week?
- What are my real objectives? Can I write them out clearly?
- Am I holding regular “One to One’s” with each member of my team to gauge effects of my behaviour? Or are they looking for a job elsewhere?
- Are you honest? Loyal? Also have real courage to do what is right?
- And above all else, are you happy? Liked? Respected?
In short, are you the type of person people want to work for? Or conversely, everyone’s last choice?
Where to next?
If you answered these truthfully, well done! You are on the road to recovery, to regain your humanity and will become a better person for it! You have recognised the fact that you may be stupidly optimistic, narcissistic in nature, and therefore you want to grow into a better, real leadership style (and person!). If you’re still not sure though, here is an easy way to check your homework.
The next time you are engaged in a group conversation with your team or many others where you are the primary speaker, record the call or meeting. Then try playing it back to your spouse or a friend. If they are honest with you, the feedback from them could come as a bit of a surprise!
