Leading with Passion

Human Resource Management – Definition
“Human Resource Management is the process of acquiring, training, appraising and compensating employees and attending to their labour relations, health and safety and fairness concerns”.

HR’s Evolving Role
Today, it’s the firms’ workforce – its knowledge, commitment, skills and training – that provides competitive advantage to the world-class companies. HR’s role is shifting from a protector and screener to a strategic partner and change agent. In today’s flattened, downsized and high performing organisations, trained and committed employees and not machines are the firms’ key. The main objective of strategic Human Resource Management is the linking of HRM with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance competitive and develop organizational culture that will foster innovation, passion and flexibility on employees.

HR – Employee Performance and Commitment
HR generally plays a major role in planning and implementing corporate downsizing and then in maintaining the moral if the employees. Commitment is the employee’s identification with an agreement to pursue the company’s mission. Many firms knew that they need their employees to work “as if they own the company”. Employee performance and commitment are directly related with each other.

Instilling Passion – Meaning
To instill passion is to put into mind the interest on an activity. This is a gradual course of action that it probes into the minds of the victim.
Passion means we are committed to being positive about our work and each other. It inspires us to act with dedication, devotion and fervor. Passion gives meaning to our life and deepens our sense of self worth. It inspires creativity and brings out the true potential as a collective. It motivates us to pursue goals with energy, enthusiasm and commitment.

With passion blood finds new roots of joy in circulation, mind receives more oxygen, alertness level touches a new high, each cell of the body displays happiness and gives rise to a more tolerant and caring attitude.

Passion Drivers
Passion alone determines the extent to which we are alive. Life is not a collection of days we manage to live through, but of days we live potentially to the hilt. Value of life comes not from achievements but from the quality of passion with which we are still making ceaseless efforts to shine and perform further.
Passion is always driven by: Prestige, Cause, People, Glamour, the drive to Create, Investigation, Commitment, the work environment and of all the SELF.

Cues to develop Passion
Putting employees first – is the concern of every corporate today. To instill passion is to win over the core competence. It does not mean being respectful, making the workplace a healthier one to live emotionally and physically. Following are the cues to develop passion:
 Focus today from the window of tomorrow
 Own responsibility
 Timely action is the key
 Learn from mistakes
 Heal your self-esteem and review your thoughts and dreams
 Balance ‘being’ and ‘doing’
 Identify genuine passion
 Have worthwhile goals
 Notice growth and accelerate competence
 Conserve passion and aim high
 Match personal goals and corporate purpose
Leading with Passion
The term ‘Leading with Passion’ has two very significant meanings. The first suggests leading off with passion. That is, making the very first priority in our life to live, work and play passionately, and to fully embrace every possible moment. Second, it means that we can lead our organisation, teams and project groups with passion – creating passionate work environments by transferring our enthusiasm for the organisation to all others who come into contact with it.
Seven steps to Passion:
Passion – Essential for organizational success
Being passionate about the work for the organisation is important for the success of the organisation.

Professionals are driven to share their vision and move people through their work. This passion and appreciation of innovation and self-expression means professionals enjoy sharing their work through teaching, mentoring and planning tasks, activities and jobs.
Passion is the key to success
“It is not the hours you put into work; it’s the passion you put in the hours counts”.
- Becky Carcia, Secretary, Health Services.
Nothing great has ever been accomplished apart from passion. The key ingredient is passion and is the indispensable quality in accomplishment. Activity is the fuel on the fire of passion.

Creating passion and Purpose in the workplace: The essence of great leadership
Good leaders create an organisation with a purpose that rises above the bottom line; great leaders go a step further finding new ways to leverage the passion of each employee in order to create a healthier workplace.
One cannot “make” employees passionate about work – passions cannot be imposed externally. Instead great leaders create environments where employees embrace the corporate purpose and have numerous opportunities to discover how their individual passions support it.
Attributes of such an environment include:
1. Clearly articulated organizational:
Leaders must communicate corporate purpose clearly to all the employees and must demonstrate the relationship between individual passion and corporate purpose. This requires the leaders to interact with small groups of employees until they “get it” to screen new employees for cultural fit; and to continually keep the relevance of purpose and passion clear for all.
2. Complimentary Extrinsic and Intrinsic rewards:
While passion in pursuit of purpose cannot come from within; one can reinforce it with extrinsic rewards.
3. Trust – the need for positive work atmosphere:
As passion cannot be dictated, one cannot impose responsibility and independence; they must come from within the self and they can only arise when there is a pervasive environment of trust among the employees.
4. Leadership by example:
Leaders must be passionate mature, self-aware and self-confident. They must promote passion, purpose and growth to the same degree they promote financial objectives.