Passion, Gratitude, and Envy in the Workplace: A Longitudinal Study of Business Leaders and Employees

In this two-wave longitudinal study, the psychological mechanisms linking work passion to well-being are examined, focusing on the unique profile of business leaders, by integrating the dualistic model of passion with the dualistic framework of envy, to analyze how work passion and gratitude shape social emotions and basic psychological needs over time. A survey on 989 Japanese working adults (including 61 business owners and executives), followed by structural equation modeling, revealed that (a) harmonious passion and gratitude promote benign envy and relatedness satisfaction, while (b) obsessive passion triggers malicious envy and relatedness frustration. Gratitude was found to significantly reduce malicious envy, while harmonious passion by itself lacked this buffering effect. Business leaders reportedly had a “high passion” adaptive psychological profile and a higher level of well-being compared to employees. This “psychological paradox” of leadership well-being suggests how harmonious engagement and social connection can buffer the potential risks of obsessive drive.