Years ago, I was facilitating a board of directors’ succession committee to select the company’s next CEO. The slate was down to two candidates, each of whom had unique strengths and limitations. The committee chair offered a fascinating observation of them, saying, “One is too ambitious, and the other isn’t ambitious enough.” When I probed to better understand her concerns, she described a host of traits spanning each candidate’s degree of self-interest, achievement orientation, self-awareness, and concern for others. In short, the candidate labeled “too ambitious” had been overly assertive about the financial growth of the company and the candidate labeled “not ambitious enough” had spoken too much about their family and personal interests.
There were two problems with this scenario. First, incomplete definitions of “ambition” should not be used as a screen to evaluate leaders. A leader’s motivations and values, and how those feed their drive for achievement, cannot be determined by isolated statements. The committee member wrongly interpreted financial growth as greed, and outside interests as a lack of drive.
Second, the impression the two candidates left shows just how ineffective people can be at nurturing and expressing ambition. The problem is that too many leaders fail to see it as a vital resource. They either recklessly overindulge it, or work hard to suppress it for fear of being seen as self-serving. Each decision, however, has a consequence.
In excess, ambition damages reputations, relationships, and can lead to catastrophic failure. On the other hand, too little ambition can make the person in question look lazy and unmotivated. Further, it can result in mediocre performance, boredom, and a bleak sense of futility.
Fostering a healthy level of ambition is not easy, and amidst so much uncertainty, it may seem like a low priority. But well-balanced, ambition leads to creativity and innovation, greater levels of performance, and deeper levels of joy and satisfaction at work, wherever “work” may be. Having the “pause button” hit — as it has been in most of our lives — makes this a wonderful time to step back and reflect on our professional aspirations.
After having studied and coached thousands of rising leaders, I have developed a framework to help people understand how to cultivate and convey ambition in a productive and well-balanced way. Doing so has helped many of them realize greater aspirations for both themselves and their organizations.
My framework structures ambition into three dimensions: performance, growth, and achievement. Striking a healthy degree of ambition is achieved by developing each dimension equally, while also recognizing the natural tensions between them, as well as between your own desires and the desires of those we lead.
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