The only way to do great work is to love what you do – Steve Jobs
Every individual is unique and everyone holds a passion.
As a leader, identifying passion within your people builds the culture you strive for
Of course, “Passion is an emotion”
It’s a strong Desire for something you admire, accept or love
Finding your team’s passions is not easy, it’s a huge task which needs consistent communication, trust between the management and team, and more importantly investing time in your people.
Without building this trust the employees won’t be comfortable, or be passionate towards your work, ideally, they will do what they are asked and may finish it as per the requirements or schedule.
But once you help them find their interest or passion, your team will get inspired and help you achieve your team goals irrespective of any challenges you might face.
Why should we build passion at work?
One of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs’ Commencement address (2005)
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Steve Jobs
Imagine being part of a team who just get the work done and for the sake of completing it
Well, we all have been through this, deep inside it will be killing every single day when you wake up from your bed to do the work you are not willing or passionate about.
As a leader, if you are not passionate about what you do, you never inspire your team and help them contribute
When you truly believe and find passion, only then you identify and fight against the challenges or the problems and focus on solving them, by never giving up irrespective of any trouble you go through.
- Passion Will Drive the Future
- How Employees Really Feel About Their Jobs (Infographic) (entrepreneur.com)
But how should we build passion at work?
If you lead a team first you must believe in the work you do or the problem you are solving to your customer, because you are the mirror for your team
- Share your passion: Showcase what you as their leader believe in the work you are doing. For example: if customer satisfaction means a lot to you, sharing the value the customer satisfaction brings to your team is critical and getting their buy-in to address and solve your customers’ problems.
- Identify what your teams’ members are passionate about: Everyone has a story and everyone has a passion, everyone at the back of their mind love something, could be the style of communication, solving the problems, creating governance, holding team meetings or even progressions or promotions etc.…
- Get close to your team
- Engage with them
- understand what drives them to work everyday
- Connect and build energy: Talk to your team and share the beliefs you have in the system, unless you share your vision openly people will not buy it. Address why you believe in it and share the value it brings to you. (I was inspired watching some of my leaders in the past, their style of solving a problem or addressing a situation)
- Show them the results and what success looks like
- Why it matters to you so much – be honest
Related Article: How to build solid stakeholder engagement
Express the reason why you believe in the work you do and how much you have learnt during one 2 one meeting or team huddles, your team is a set of unique individuals. Not everybody will listen or believe 100% what you say but through honest and consistent communication and showcasing your result through your passion – your team will start believing in you
For SME’s/team leaders who are aspiring to become a PMP or an existing manager facing hurdles, my personal recommendation is to study for PMP Certification. This course provides you the foundation on
- People – soft skills required to run the projects smoothly
- Process – technical aspects
- Business environment – connection between projects and organizational strategy
Personally, this course helped me to improve my operations and my understanding of the above foundations better and helped me to understand why we should Inspire Passion at work.
Conclusion
It all begins with you and your vision. You will be passionate only when you love or trust something. Some of us draw passion from others and some build it by themselves based on their interests or the hard lessons they had learnt in their career and some inspire from their family
So, identify what motivates you and your team, “Everyone has a story and everyone has a passion.” You will be inspired everyday by creating this passion at work because you love what you do and because you love it you will continue to innovate it!
How do you inspire your teams? Please leave your comments below.