Passion: The Motive Power in Leadership‪.‬

Passion infuses leadership in all of its dimensions -- in its ambition, execution, and above all in its motivation. Though individuals become leaders for many different reasons, the common motor force is passion. It stimulates leadership in every arena, including fields as diverse as politics, business, the military, and sports. The motives may be mixed, but each is sparked by passion. INDIVIDUALS take on leadership because there is some kind of challenge that arouses emotion. It may be as simple a motivation as not wanting someone else to be the leader, or a conviction that one can do the job better than another person. It has been suggested that Robert Stanfield entered the Canadian federal Conservative leadership race in 1967 to head off Duff Roblin and Dalton Camp. It is certainly true that James Fenimore Cooper decided to be a writer after he had read a novel he thought was utterly worthless.