Leaders - Top 10 Tips to Develop Passion

In previous articles I explored passion and leadership. I want to continue this theme today to answer the questions I received from some of you who are struggling in this area and from some who find that passion is something that you display some but not most of the time. As you read through these tips, pick 1 or 2 that appeal most and start to implement them.

1.Be curious – about your products, the service you provide, the competition; about how you can improve. Make curiosity a daily practice; build it into your working day. Ask probing questions and really listen to the answers you get.

2.Explore what appeals to you – where your curiosity takes you, in terms of improvements. This is to energise people (including you) rather than to lead people off down a blind alley. To do this you must fully explore the topic – discuss at team meetings and in larger groups.

3.Be interested in your people – your staff, customers, suppliers, and stakeholders. Do you really know who they are? What they really want? How you and your company can help them get what they want?

4.Start a daily practice to consciously do something to inspire and motivate you – to get you passionate about the day ahead. This could be talking to someone who inspires you; listening to a motivational or meditative CD or MP3 recording; compiling and reading your own motivational quote, story or goal. Or it could be a daily exercise routine. Think about what’s best for you and get started now!

5.Talk about what you enjoy, who or what you admire. Get animated – let people see the real you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be work related and it certainly doesn’t need to take up much time; but talking animatedly and positively can help everyone to feel and act in a more positive way themselves.

6.Do some of what you love at work. Now there’s a balance here for many of you between the tasks you love to do and the tasks you need to do; and there’s also a balance between doing what only you can do (the high value tasks), and leading and managing others to do the rest. The skill is to do enough of what you love to keep you passionate, energetic and motivated, and to delegate, ditch, or learn to love the other tasks too!

7.Love what you do. This follows on from the last tip in that many leaders prefer to be more “hands on” in their role. If this is you, I suggest you make a conscious effort to list all the things you like about leading and managing others. If you combine this with point 5 and talk to people about what you love, it reinforces the message both to yourself and others. If you “act as if” you love what you do you really will start to love what you do!

8.Do something out of your comfort zone – it’ll help you appreciate what you’re asking of others and how it might be making them feel on a regular basis. And, it’ll stretch your own boundaries. Being in the “stretch” rather than the “comfort” zone can help you get fully engrossed in a topic, and keen to learn and improve: passion is often a by-product of this.

9.Make time in your life for the things you love to do; the things that make you forget time, or de-stress. If you don’t have a passion or hobby outside of work then ask yourself “How am I spending my time?” “Is it energising?” “Do I enjoy my free time, or do I just sit in front of the TV because it’s easy, or worse still, do I carry on working out of habit?” Make a conscious decision to spend time on other things in your life – get physical, do what you love, take up something new. The only thing that’s stopping you is you, and the first step is a decision!

10.Recognise and reward people for the things they do well. Tell people if you’re pleased with their effort and results; let them see that what they do and how they do things gets noticed; let them feel proud and satisfied. Recognising and rewarding others with words and actions also helps you to feel good, by seeing and feeling how much it means to others. Passion flows from feeling good.