Obsessive passion, competence, and performance in a project management context

Obsessive passion is when people have a strong inclination toward an activity that they like, find important, and in which they spend significant time, but also feel internal pressure to engage in. Prior research has demonstrated that obsessive passion typically brings several negative consequences. The present study nuances the picture by showing that there are indeed conditions when obsessive passion can be beneficial and that it has an important role for project management. It develops and tests hypotheses on the role of project leaders' obsessive passion for project goals. Results support that challenging goals are attained to a greater extent if the project leader scores high on obsessive passion. Such obsessive passion, in turn, is a result of the project leader's competence (positive relationship) and the team's competence (inverted U-shaped relationship). These results have important implications for theory and future research on passion, goal theory, and competence in projects.

► Project leaders’ and team members’ competence influence leaders’ obsessive passion.
► Inverted U between team members’ competence and project leaders’ obsessive passion.
► Project leaders’ obsessive passion moderates the goal challenge—goal attainment link.