Show Your Passion, Advance Your Career.

Passion is defined as a strong emotion or feeling about something, or, a burst of strong emotions. We all are passionate about things in our lives: our family, children, hobbies and, hopefully our careers. I recently read the book The Corner Office by Adam Bryant. The book captures the thoughts of numerous CEOs in many different industries. Specifically, it is about how they not only advanced their own careers to that top spot but also what they look for in hiring people and promoting people inside their organizations. One thing that came out was they all make attempts to share and show their passions and they look for people to add to their teams who are passionate. The people they want on their teams do not necessarily have to be passionate about the work (although that helps) but passionate about anything. Why? Because showing passion demonstrates to the CEOs that the individual has some fire and drive inside them and this is what they want from the people on their teams.

We often don't think it's okay to show our passions at work about anything but work. But, that is not necessarily the case. Demonstrating that you are passionate about, for example, coaching your daughter's soccer team shows that you have strong feelings and emotions that you put forth towards something and that can translate into drive about work. Senior leaders look for enthusiasm in their employees because if they are passionate about something, then they can tap into that energy. If the leaders are good, they will not only welcome your expression of these passions but find a way to tap into and leverage them in the workplace.

For example, I have a client who is a CEO and knows that one of his employees is extremely passionate about the environment. Although this employee's role as Marketing Director does not primarily plan in the environmental arena, he tapped into that passion by allowing her to lead the company's "Green" effort. Her enthusiasm about this topic spread across the organization and they were actually recognized for their efforts by their community leaders. If she had never expressed her enthusiasm about helping the environment to her CEO, their efforts and recognition in the community might not have happened.

Some people are not comfortable expressing their eage
ess or excitement at work about things that do not relate to their work and that is often because they have never done it. In these cases, it helps to start small. Taking small steps to share your passions with those you work with will give you the comfort level to start sharing more. And when you start sharing more, people around you will likely become more enthusiastic about what you're sharing because your enthusiasm will be contagious. Many of the CEOs in Adam Bryant's book said that they like being around people who are enthusiastic about different subjects and who demonstrate their passions; those are the people they want on their team. So, what are you enthusiastic about? Share it and watch what happens. I'd bet that others would pick up on your passion and joy and want you on their team as well.