Managing Teams by Finding and Fueling Their Passions

September 7, 2025

One of the most enduring leadership lessons I’ve learned is this: the happiest, most productive teams are built when people get to work on things they genuinely care about.

Leadership Isn’t About Control

Too often, management becomes an exercise in resource allocation, task assignment, and performance metrics. While those mechanics matter, they overlook a simple truth: people bring their best work when they’re engaged with work that energizes them.

Effective leaders don’t simply assign tasks; they observe, listen, and uncover what motivates each team member. Sometimes that passion aligns directly with their current role. Other times, it may require some creative reshaping of responsibilities.

Passion Creates Durable Output

When someone is excited about their work, you get more than just compliance — you get craftsmanship, creativity, and resilience. Passionate people:

  • Solve harder problems because they want to
  • Stick with complex issues longer without burning out
  • Bring forward ideas leadership might not have considered
  • Naturally seek out learning and improvement

This is especially valuable in security, governance, and risk work where the subject matter can often feel abstract, bureaucratic, or thankless.

The Manager’s Role: Pattern Recognition

Your job as a manager is not to manufacture passion, but to find where it already exists:

  • Who enjoys mentoring others?
  • Who lights up when digging into technical problems?
  • Who naturally gravitates toward process design?
  • Who is energized by presenting to stakeholders?

Once you know, you can start to shape assignments, projects, and career paths that align.

Balance Still Matters

Of course, not every task will be someone’s favorite. We all have to share operational toil, documentation, or administrative work. But if people spend most of their time on work they enjoy, the less glamorous parts become easier to absorb.

Final Thought

Teams built around individual passions are more stable, more resilient, and more innovative.

In leadership, our responsibility is to create the conditions where people do their best work. That often means being less of a director, and more of a talent scout.

I share these kinds of reflections to help bridge leadership practice with real-world team dynamics.