As a long-time resident of Austria and German speaker, I'm with Eva Schicker regarding “literal” translations. It would be just as “correct” for me to write that “Leidenschaft” literally means “pain shaft.”

Here is a list of German words ending in “-schaft.” You’ll note with a bit of help from Linguee that you can’t put “-schaft” into a simple box. After decades of speaking German daily I’d say that “leidenschaftlich” (adjective/adverb) is very close to “passionate” in the context of “passionate about doing something.” The “leiden” part is that you are willing (“ready to” — this is a common thread with German words ending in “schaft”) give up or “suffer” in order to be ready for the something you are passionate about.

“Leidenschaft” as a noun as you quote it very much does just mean “passion” as in romantic passion.

All that being said, I founded my own company at 30 and still run it successfuly decades later. I speak only for myself and a few other successful entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to in detail about this: we crave both and in some important ways they are indistiguishable and/or the definitions are interchangeable.

[edit]typo “not”->”note”