beware “passion” as euphemism

When you’re a leader, you have power over others. They usually know this and make choices accordingly. One reasonable thing they might do is avoid criticizing you, for fear of upsetting you.

One way to confront this is explicitly asking for criticism, then publicly praising the people who offer it, with evidence of how you’ve changed things in response to the criticism (when you have in fact changed things). Another tactic is to look out for words that teammates will use to soften or mask a critique. 

One of those words, in my experience, is “passion.” I’ve lost my temper in meetings before. In some cases, when I’ve gone to apologize for this, I get met with reassurance that it’s all ok. I was just being “passionate.” This was easier for my team to say than “yeah, I think you have some anger and resentment you need to handle better.”

For men in particular, I’ve found that inappropriate expressions of anger get chalked up to “passion.” So if you’re hearing yourself described this way, take stock. How many times in the last month or so have you lost your cool, raised your voice, or shut down a conversation you just didn’t like? Ask people on the team who see you in a variety of settings, maybe with a heightened standard in place.

Consider: “I want to model exceptional self-regulation for the team. Where have I fallen short of that in the last x weeks that you can remember?”

-eric