Passionate workers perform better. But to truly unlock potential, leaders need to focus on cultivating a unique kind of passion among their employees.

When most leaders talk about passion, they talk about workers who will work nights and weekends on their assigned tasks without questions or complaints. However, based on research assessing environments where there is sustained, extreme performance improvement, it turns out the participants in these environments all have a very specific form of passion—the passion of the explorer.

This explorative passion has three components. First, people with this passion are excited about achieving greater impact in a specific domain. This could be anything from gardening to nuclear physics. They are also excited when confronted with unexpected challenges and see them as an opportunity to achieve even greater impact. Third, when confronted with those unexpected challenges, their first reaction is to connect with others and ask for help. They realize that, no matter how smart and talented they are, they will achieve much greater impact when........

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