Passionate education leaders often have a robust desire that pushes them forward. This desire drives them to be the best leader that they can be and to help everyone in their school and district to be successful. They accomplish this by practicing invitational leadership, which invites everyone in the organization to lead in their own way.

The amount of passion you have affects your energy and that of your followers as well. Use your enthusiasm and to kindle the passion of your followers! With everyone inspired to help students succeed, there is no way that your school or district can fail. Even if you move on to another position or retire, your legacy of passionate leadership will live on through the leaders that you created.

Be like Harriet

Writing about leadership passion makes me think about the life, times, and adventures of Harriet Tubman. During the 1800s, she was a slave in Maryland that endured unspeakable torture, punishment, and tragedy during her lifetime. Through it all, she never gave up hope, and always believed that one day she would be free, alongside her family and friends.

She eventually escaped to freedom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but her passion would not allow her to enjoy it for long. Not satisfied with just securing her own freedom and living out a life as a free woman, she immediately went back down south to rescue her family and friends.

Patiently, one group at a time, she helped her relatives escape slavery, and eventually guided hundreds of other slaves to freedom in the north. Traveling under the cover of darkness and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or “Moses,” as she was called) “never lost a passenger.”

After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she guided slaves farther north into modern-day Canada and helped newly freed slaves find work. This would not have been possible if Harriet did not possess an unbridled passion for justice and peerless leadership skills.