The Paradox of Passion: Passion and Burnout in the Workplace
If you’re a high-achieving professional, I’d bet passion for your work is a big piece of your success equation. But recent research suggests that unmanaged passion may significantly contribute to burnout, demanding a reevaluation of how we approach passion in our professional lives and how organizations manage their most enthusiastic employees.
At Harvard Business School, Jon M. Jachimowicz's research highlights the paradox of passion. Of course passion is important and sustaining passion keeps us engaged in our work for many years. But if we don’t consciously manage our passion, it can drive burnout. Here’s how:
1. Overcommitment: Passionate employees are more likely to take on additional work and extend their hours, often leading to exhaustion.
2. Difficulty Disengaging: High passion can impede the ability to "switch off" from work, hindering necessary recovery time.
3. Misperception of Needs: Passion can create a false sense of invincibility, leading individuals to underestimate their need for rest and recovery.
4. Performance Pressure: There's often an expectation to demonstrate passion through extroverted behaviors, which can be emotionally draining-- especially if you’re an introvert!
5. Exploitation Risk: Organizations may inadvertently take advantage of passionate employees by assigning unpaid tasks or offering lower compensation.
A study by Jachimowicz, Joy Bredehorst, Kai Krautter and Jirs Meuris found that on particularly passionate days, people work harder, are less likely to take breaks, work longer hours, and take on additional tasks. "When I come home that day, I am less likely to psychologically detach from the really demanding day that I just had, which means that I don't actually have the ability to recover," Jachimowicz explains. "Just like an athlete, when we run really far and really hard and really fast, we also need to recover more. But passion deceives people into believing that they don't need to do that right now."
This lack of recovery leads to higher levels of emotional exhaustion the following day, creating a negative spiral: "The more passionate you are, the less you detach, the more exhausted you are, the less passionate you can feel because you just don't have the emotional capacity left to be passionate."
Passion is not a binary state but a complex, fluctuating aspect of our professional lives. In truth passion for our work doesn’t mean every day is ponies and rainbows, and we might go through tough periods just like anyone else! The concept of “passion for your work” can lead people to imagine that if you do what you love, you never have to work another day in your life… that it should feel easy, that every day you're going to show up and love what you do and work longer hours. Knowing that other people have these expectations of you creates pressure, and you feel you have to perform “passion” for other people. Jon says, “You might feel like you don't have the license to tell other people, ‘Wait a minute, I know you think I'm passionate, but actually I'm really tired today.’” Even worse, if we go through a period of burnout, disconnection, or a mental health challenge the stakes feel very high.
Organizations Need A Passion Strategy
Passion is a big topic in job interviews- but organizations should help employees sustain passion over time, not just during the hiring process. Passion is difficult to maintain day to day! Jachimowicz argues for implementing comprehensive passion strategies within organizations. These strategies should aim to:
1. Sustain Engagement: Help employees maintain their passion over time without succumbing to burnout.
2. Optimize Performance: Manage passion levels to ensure consistent, long-term productivity.
3. Retain Talent: Prevent burnout-induced turnover of valuable, passionate employees.
4. Align Career Trajectories: Create progression paths that maintain connection to passion-driven work.
5. Account for Fluctuations: Develop systems that accommodate the natural ebb and flow of passion.
6. Prevent Exploitation: Avoid underpaying or overworking passionate employees. (Politics and non-profits, I’m looking at you!!).
Jachimowicz suggests that managing super passionate employees requires a different kind of supervision: "I think we have this assumption that when we manage a more passionate person, we believe that this employee needs less scrutiny, that this employee needs less supervision, that this employee is more of a self-starter and is able to manage themselves really well. I actually think it's the opposite."
He advises, "If I'm a manager and I notice that one of my employees shows up and they have a lot of passion that day, all my warning signs should go off. What that means is that I should be particularly careful. Because if I ask that person to take on more work today, they're more likely to say yes. If I ask that person to stay longer today, they're more likely to go above and beyond. And that might be cool for today, but that means that tomorrow and the next day after that, they're going to be more burned out."
To address these challenges, consider the following strategies:
1. Recognize Burnout Variations: Understand that burnout can manifest as emotional exhaustion, loss of self-efficacy, or cynicism. Each requires a different intervention.
2. Prioritize Recovery: Implement and respect boundaries between work and personal time, even when passion is high.
3. Advocate for Structural Changes: Initiate conversations about passion management within your organization.
4. Reframe Success Metrics: Focus on sustainable engagement rather than constant high-intensity passion.
5. Develop Personalized Strategies: Create individual plans to maintain passion while preventing burnout.
If organizations don't manage for passion, employees will end up burning out and performing worse than they otherwise could have, meaning they're not leveraging all of the strengths that passion provides, warns Jon. “And as a result, they will have employees that are not performing to the fullest of their potential. I started studying passion because I wanted to understand how we can make a difference in the world and address some of the big societal challenges that we face right now. But individuals at the moment are not good at maintaining their own passion. This means that there are fewer people doing the hard work. So if we fix this and develop a passion strategy for ourselves, and if we as organizational leaders develop passion strategies for our workforce, think of how much more we could accomplish.”
Morra
P.S.: Listen to our interview for fascinating insight into the performative nature of passion, and why introverts might reap less social benefit from their passion than extroverts.