Ambition
November 01, 2011 at 10:22 AM
I’ve been thinking a lot about the roll ambition plays in leadership. I spent much of the past week conducting leadership assessments with a group of senior leaders in an organization. The assessment measures many different aspects of a leaders personality – including ambition.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ambition as an ardent desire for rank, fame or power. They also define it as a desire to achieve a particular end. Within the context of the assessment, ambition includes things such as confidence, competitiveness, willingness to take the lead and having a strong sense of oneself.
We’ve all seen examples of ambition gone awry - think Jeffery Shilling and Ken Lay. These men let their ambition untether them from a greater sense of right and wrong. Without such grounding their ambition blinded them. While they had a specific end they wanted to achieve – it was disconnected from a sense of greater purpose in the world.
In contrast, I was meeting with a client on Friday who is the CEO of a large national non-profit. I’ll call him Tom. This organization plays an important role in the world and, as its leader, Tom is highly ambitious and driven. When he looks to the future he sees an opportunity for the organization to have an even greater impact on the world. In order to accomplish those goals, he will have to make some difficult choices and take some significant risks. As we spoke, I asked him what guides his thinking as he ponders the choices he makes. He paused for a moment and thought – finally saying that, at the end of day, the question he always asks himself when faced with tough choices is “what will help us serve the greatest number of people in the most meaningful way.” So while Tom is ambition it is connected to a set of values and a greater sense of purpose and meaning – both his own and that of his organization.
Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous says; “true ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.” Whether its God, the world, your organization or your community – ambition, when connected with something higher than yourself is a force that moves mountains and creates change.