How to Lead with Passion

"Leaders who are passionate about their vision can generate enthusiasm and excitement among their employees and colleagues and motivate them to achieve success,.  But how to craft the messages and deliver them is critical to getting buy-in from the rest of the organization."

• Believe in your ideas with enthusiasm. If you have conviction about your ideas, plans, projects or direction it will be reflected in your voice, your words and your actions. Your passion will be apparent and will influence others.

• Build your case. Make your points for your ideas in both a rational and emotional manner. The intensity of your feelings, combined with facts and reason, will elicit support.

• Be assertive. Assertive leaders gain respect because they express themselves in an honest, straightforward manner. By speaking in an assertive style, you can make your point and achieve your goals without putting down or alienating other members of the team.

• Be positive. Your delivery is as important as your words. The tone and pitch of your words are an important part of your communications. Listen to yourself to determine if you sound committed to your idea. Your passion will be contagious.

• Be responsive. Ask what it is about your idea that others like best or least. Be a complete listener, one who leans into the conversation and shows complete attention. Ask follow-up questions. They will offer insights into their thinking. Your responses then can be directed to their specific concerns.

• Show confidence. Your physical posture says as much about your commitment to an idea or belief, and your willingness to uphold it, as do the words and tone of your voice. Non-verbal communication conveys more than 90 percent of any message. Keep your head up and maintain eye contact.

• Be persistent. Stay the course. You may need to restate your rationale and continue to demonstrate your intense feelings and enthusiasm over time to secure full support from others. Remain focused on the overall objective.

• Accept responsibility. If your approach fails, be the first to admit it. Others will respect you for being forthright. Then review the situation, determine what went wrong and learn how to do it better next time

PASS

• Leadership with vision, passion, emotional intelligence and backbone. Andy gets my vote as the strongest candidate and leader this week. The episode began with Andy returning from the boardroom only to overhear his teammates predicting that he would be the next fired. He said he "felt like the kid who never gets picked to play dodgeball on the team." We all know from football and other sports that underdogs often emerge victorious due to their great resolve and determination to win despite the odds. Andy overcame his team's lack of confidence in his abilities and led his team to victory. No easy task. How did he do it? He led with vision, passion, emotional intelligence and backbone.

  Andy began with a clear vision based soundly on the expectations set by the customer. He led with passion for his own creative idea, and passion breeds courage in a leader.

  Even in the face of challenge by his team members, he demonstrated clear authority, influence and confidence that inspired his team to rally behind his vision.

  Andy again displayed emotional intelligence.

  While under great stress and with little time to shoot a commercial because of bad weather, Andy remained calm and composed. This ability to remain calm under stress is critical for leaders. Followers need leaders to provide order and protection. Leaders who allow themselves to be "emotionally hijacked" (a phrase coined by Daniel Goleman, author of "Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence") while under stress are doomed. Emotional hijacking occurs when our limbic, or emotional, areas of the brain overtake the neocortex, or the thinking brain. Having a leader lose their composure and control can be devastating to a team.  Leaders must be mindful of the impact of their emotions on the team and master strategies to maintain and demonstrate composure under stress. Andy proved he could lead a team, even through a storm.  He also demonstrated that leaders can compromise without giving up control. He was able to maintain a precarious balance of backbone and compromise. He allowed Kelly to give the main pitch but insisted on doing the introduction himself. He demonstrated maturity by not caving in to another strong leader, but was willing to compromise as a strategy to maintain his leadership.
   

• Give your customers what they ask for.  Mosaic won this task because they listened to their customer. Their campaign capitalized on the emotion and heart theme that Deutsch clearly wanted. This counts as a penalty flag for Apex who instead, delivered a fear-based campaign.  Companies who don't listen to their customers will fail. This is not complex, but, surprisingly, many companies fail to master this simple business formula.

  FAIL

   

• Leadership is influence. A leadership proverb: "He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk." This sums up Elizabeth who was a weak, indecisive leader. She failed to influence her team to the point that they were inspired to mutiny. Successful leadership is about the ability to influence. Just because you have the position of authority does not mean that you are a leader. A leader is nothing without followers. The good news is that influence is a skill that can be developed through coaching, training and experience.
   

• Where's the vision?  Elizabeth's failed to communicate a clear vision and direction with conviction and passion. This was unfortunate for Apex because even though she was opposed to her team's military theme idea (the idea that lost them the game), she was never able to lead her team to clearly identify an alternative compelling vision. She continually flipped back and forth between ideas which drove her sole ally, Kevin, to finally declare: "Our project manager sucks." Elizabeth never led an effective team process to identify a winning campaign strategy. She was correct that the terrorism theme was not a winning strategy. Where she failed was in her inability to convince her team and lead them through a process of identifying a winning campaign idea. Her direction was wishy-washy, which inspired open rebellion.
   

• One dysfunctional team member can turn a team in the wrong direction.  Raj displayed several dysfunctional team behaviors, including clowning around and bullying Elizabeth into submitting to his military idea -- an idea that resulted in the team's loss. Instead of holding her own structure, vision and order in meetings, Elizabeth caved to Raj's unruly behavior.  It is not uncommon in workplace teams to have individuals forcefully ramrod their ideas on the group.  How do you deal with someone whose behavior disrupts the team? High performing teams adopt agreed upon group norms or rules to help control unruly team member behavior.  Effective leaders also use intervention techniques to alter disruptive patterns. For example, Elizabeth might have tried this approach: "Raj, I notice that you are yelling out your ideas and cutting others off. This behavior is stifling our creative process. I am going to lead a brainstorming process to come up with alternative ideas. Please hold your thoughts until we have had a chance to hear and consider other ideas."  Elizabeth then could have given each team member an opportunity to vote on the ideas that best met the criteria of the customer or she could have announced that as the leader, she was going to make the decision and assume responsibility for the consequences.

MAUREEN MORIARTY
SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER