Forget Passion
and Focus on Purpose
by Robert B. Denhardt
Director of Leadership Programs, Price School
of Public Policy
University of Southern California
Just as the vision thing has come to dominate
discussions of organizational leadership, the passion thing has come to
dominate discussions of personal leadership. As one writer puts it, “Your
journey to leadership success starts with figuring out what matters most to you
and then doing something to advance that goal every day.” Most say, find your
passion and don’t let anything else get in the way.
But identifying your passion is neither easy nor
wise, especially early on. Why should we expect someone with little experience
to know what he or she wants to pursue the rest of his or her life? Some
do, most don't. That's a decision that requires maturity and wisdom,
possibly even the wisdom of decades.
What's more, many people don't recognize their
passion until they have achieved it. They go through life following many
interests and opportunities, only later recognizing the central thread that
holds it all together. In his well-known Stanford commencement address in
2005, Steve Jobs put it this way: “you can't connect the dots looking forward;
you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots
will somehow connect in your future.” The Nashville Bluegrass Band is even more
to the point: "When I get where I'm goin', that's when I'll know where I'm
bound."
In addition, the find-your-passion advice can morph
into an extremely rationalized process of personal goal setting, especially as
passions are translated into specific goals and objectives. Where do I want to
be in ten years? What are the steps that will get me there? What are the
metrics that I can use to measure my progress? Just as you can over-rationalize
the process of organizational planning and implementation, you can
over-rationalize the process called "life" - which is sterile indeed
without emotion, intuition, and beauty.
Finally, the word "passion" carries a
somewhat whimsical, fleeting character. It’s here today, gone tomorrow, and
often formed without any basis in ethics or values. It’s built around an
individual’s own personal (self) interest and may or may not build or
contribute to the larger community. It’s just not as powerful or enduring as
direction or commitment or purpose.
For this reason, I would suggest that, instead of
passion, you focus on a personal sense of purpose" By that I mean: a
direction based in your values, one to which you commit yourself fully and show
the patience, persistence, drive, and determination to stay with – until a
better path comes along. Fill in the blank: “I exist to . . . .”
As a leader, you will also be called upon to
articulate an organizational sense of purpose, which, in my mind, should be
defined in the same way as above: a direction based in your values, one to
which you commit yourself fully . . . until a better path comes along.
Fill in the blank: “Our organization exists to: . . . .”
Should your personal sense of purpose be the same
as your organizational direction – and vice versa? Some say yes, because
both require a value choice and your values should be consistent. Some say no,
because you need a life outside work. I would merely say that the two must
not be incompatible. And if they are I’d say it’s time to find a different line
of work. Personal purpose and values take precedence over organizational
purpose.
Similarly, purpose takes precedence over
passion. That’s not to say that leaders should not be passionate.
Indeed, passion in pursuit of one's purpose is a virtue (as long as that passion
is not blinded by ego). For the leader, perhaps the most fitting
purpose is to lead, to integrate, to focus, and to give life to the many
separate and often conflicting purposes and passions that dwell in any
organization or group. And that is something a good leader can and will be both
purposeful and passionate about.
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