As we enter the love-filled time of year, we often sit and reflect on our relationships with our romantic partners. This Valentine’s Day, if you have a special someone, you might be taking them out to a nice restaurant, spending a homey night in, or trying something new. For those not cuffed up, myself included, you might be having a galantines night or guys night out. Valentine’s Day is traditionally thought of as a time to celebrate the platonic and romantic relationships in our life; however, this year, I challenge you as I’m challenging myself to reflect on your relationship—interpreted broadly—with your work.
Over the past four years, I’ve been captivated by a different type of love. I deeply enjoy having conversations with my peers, friends, mentors, and colleagues about the work they do or aspire to do in the future. My first-year dorm in Castle Point and many walks around campus with friends are two of the venues where I had many conversations on the concept of vocational identity— a person’s sense of self as a professional— fascinates me. I could talk about it for hours and, at times, do.
Senior year, for many, is crunch time for finding a job. Millennials and our generation, Gen Z more often searches for meaning and fulfillment in work. Companies have listened to an extent by leveraging messaging strategies that highlight the missions and societal impact of firms. I’ve anecdotally concluded that there’s an overwhelming desire to be passionate about the work we participate in. Research suggests that passion, an intrinsic motivator, can elicit benefits like increased performance—a business imperative for passion in the workplace—stronger social connection to colleagues, and fewer experiences of emotional exhaustion at work, which since 2020 has become increasingly difficult for companies to curb emotional exhaustion at work.
New research suggests that considering all the benefits associated with being passionate about your work can be negated if you work in teams where you’re less passionate than your colleagues. Two studies were conducted on engineering teams. Over 1000 employees on 300+ teams were surveyed three times per day for 20 days. The findings suggest that on teams where there are very passionate employees and less passionate employees, it creates environmental pressures for employees to put on a superficial persona of themselves, which in turn can ostracize them from their colleagues, have negative performance effects, and be an emotionally exhausting endeavor to wear the superficial persona and engage in behaviors not authentic to them.
What can you do about this? If you find yourself in a situation where you lack passion compared to your colleagues, that’s ok. Passion is an intrinsic motivator. Something tied to our identity internally. Shift your perspective to the extrinsic motivators that have brought you to this work. Obviously, there is a salary associated with the work you do, but beyond that perhaps there are other extrinsic motivations, often more tangible, you can chase. These can include promotions, raises, performance, recognition, etc. Don’t allow groups of passionate people to feel ostracized or pressured because you don’t share the same level of passion.
As you continue your search for the right first job or reflect on the work you’ll be doing, consider reflecting on your relationship with that work. Will passion be driving your success or exhausting you?
