Employees who view their work as a calling are more willing to accept lower pay and make financial sacrifices. This passion makes them susceptible to exploitation, as organizations can implicitly substitute the promise of meaningful work for fair compensation and sustainable working conditions.
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The most motivated employees ("freedom fighters") offer unparalleled commitment, but only if the company's mission is authentic. Unlike mercenaries (paid) or conscripts (obligated), they demand integrity and will quickly expose any disconnect between the stated mission and reality, making them a high-reward but high-maintenance talent segment.
True entrepreneurship often stems from a 'compulsion' to solve a problem, rather than a conscious decision to adopt a job title. This internal drive is what fuels founders through the difficult decisions, particularly when forced to choose between short-term financial engineering and long-term adherence to a mission of creating real value.
The flip side of passion is that employees with a strong calling can be tough colleagues. Their intense commitment can manifest as hyper-criticism towards leaders, coworkers, and decisions that conflict with their personal vision, leading to strained team dynamics.
Passion has a dark side in the workplace. Highly passionate individuals are often less likely to negotiate their salary because they worry that bringing up money will make others doubt the authenticity of their commitment. This can lead to them being underpaid and exploited.
A study found that CEOs trained to prioritize shareholder value deliver short-term returns by suppressing employee pay. This practice drives away high-skilled workers and cripples the company's long-term outlook, all without evidence of actually increasing sales, productivity, or investment.
Society elevates pursuing passion to a moral good, which makes people feel they are 'bad' if they don't have one or choose to leave one. This pressure can trap individuals in unsuitable roles and denigrates other valid, meaningful life paths.
Employee retention now requires a customized approach beyond generic financial incentives. Effective managers must identify whether an individual is driven by work-life balance, ego-gratifying titles, or money, and then transparently tailor their role and its associated trade-offs to that primary motivator.
Entrepreneurs driven by external pressures like social status or financial gain, termed "obsessively passionate," are ironically less effective. This type of passion leads to a lack of boundaries, diminished focus, and an inability to balance other life roles, ultimately hindering business performance.
People with a strong calling don't just work harder out of sheer will. Research indicates the primary mechanism is increased enjoyment of the work itself. This positive feeling directly translates into greater effort on relevant tasks, supporting the "love what you do" axiom.
The modern idea that work should provide fulfillment is a recent concept that enables exploitation. As author Sarah Jaffe explains, it encourages workers to accept poor pay and blurred boundaries because the 'love' for the job is treated as a form of payment, allowing employers to capitalize on passion and creativity.