12.
Passion: Take this life and
love it
John Schantter’s,
the founder of Papa John’s Pizza, story was told in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of
Leadership and repeated in The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. Schantter rolled up his sleeves and made
pizzas for one-and-half hour when one of his franchise was unexpectedly
swamped. Maxwell looked at CEOs of
Fortune 500 companies and revealed that more than half of the CEOs had grades
averages of C and below in college, and that almost three-quarter of US
presidents were below-average students in their classes. In addition, more than half of all
millionaire entrepreneurs never made it to college or were
college-dropouts. Maxwell concluded that
passion had driven them to achieve great things.
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Webster’s
definition
intense,
driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction
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My thoughts
Maxwell hit the
nail on the head that “nothing can take the place of passion in a leader’s
life”. Heads of organizations who have
no passion for the business of their organizations would be akin to most
employees, merely working for the paycheck that pays the bills and puts food on
the table. However, passion should not
be the sole confine of leaders. An
effective leader ought to also be one who can spread and nurture his passion to
his employees. Afterall, a group of
people passionate about the same goal and aligned is far stronger than one
passionate person leading people who could not have gave a damn about their
jobs. As with any other faddish words,
“having passion” are two words that keep popping up in interviews of
entrepreneurs, CEOs, and the likes of arts practitioners. Too liberal use of the word makes it feel
like “passion” is akin to salt or pepper that spices up an interview article
and adds credibility to the interviewee.
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