When did ambition become a dirty word? Perhaps we have forsaken the pursuit of opportunity equality (anyone can become anything) in favor of pursuing outcome equality (trophies for showing up). Studies have found that ambitious people attain higher education and income levels, build more prestigious careers, and report higher overall life satisfaction.
Why defend ambition?
When we begin our primary program, we often have to elicit a frequently missing ambition: a behavior seemingly correlated to having undefined aims and no urgent desire to act on them. Perhaps initiative (the eagerness to accomplish something) has taken a backseat to civility or indifference? Have we displaced ingenuity and determination with passivity and hesitation? Although there may be social, cultural, or even gender conditions amiss, we teach ambition as something one demonstrates to accomplish their aims and live wholly satisfied.
Here are a few reasons to defend ambition:
- Ambition can be confused with being greedy, pushy, and selfish.
- Working hard toward something produces excellence and opportunity.
- Ambition has taken a backseat to passivity, civility, and empowerment.
- Ambitious women get disdained (men too, but not as much).
- Calling someone an “overachiever” is essentially insulting their personality.
- Ambitious people report a higher overall life satisfaction.
Ambition can be confused with being greedy, pushy, and selfish
I happen to be married to someone who loves love; their favorite movies are on Lifetime or Hallmark Channel. We have 100s of these movies on our DVR and I’ve seen quite a few. These movies are rather predictable in their story: two people bump into each other, they sense a spark of interest, and then grapple with their different lives until one (or sometimes both) realizes that all that matters is love.
Unfortunately, the common villain in the story is ambition. He or she went to school, worked hard, gained success, and just by visiting a snowy Christmas town realizes that all that really matters are concerns of the heart.
I love love too. However, the stories are often represented as either-or scenarios where love is the only winner and ambition is the loser. I often wonder how these lovebirds make a living or dream of anything beyond snuggling by a fire 24-7. Ambition is about being satisfied across a broad range of conditions of life—including love. While we’ve all heard that in the end, all that will matter are our relationships, even these will be challenged if we can’t afford to eat, aren’t healthy, and are dissatisfied with how we lived our lives.
An ambitious adult will make plans and move strategically and tactically to satisfy [all] their Conditions of Life.
“Ambitions Adults (an explicit term from our programs) make invitations, offers, commitments, requests, and articulate consequences, judgments, assessments, and assertions that – when accepted – give them the best opportunities to satisfy the 15 unavoidable Conditions of Life. Ambitious Adults do not rely on solutions ‘coming to them.’ Rather, they seek to satisfy their concerns purposefully. They accept the constraints of their environment, and will not argue with or deny the biological, linguistic, and transactional facticity of human life. They rely on and produce consequential environments that offer others solutions to taking care of important Conditions of Life rather than wait for offers to come to them. They move purposefully to fulfill their aims and recognize their need for help. They are careful not to demonstrate indifference and they tend to know their limits, liabilities, and assets. Ambitious Adults respond to offers of opportunity far more often than threats.”[1]
Personally, I work equally hard to thrive in business and relationships. Often my work is done in service of my relationships, not in spite of them.
Working hard toward something produces excellence and opportunity
Many of our models or heroes are those with extraordinary ambition. Whether they mastered an Olympic sport, became iconic musicians, or took a start-up public, what these people share in common is they worked hard to accomplish something that isn’t easy, commonplace, or ordinary. In fact, it took years of study and deliberate practice to build their 10,000 hours; to produce the excellence, authority, fitness, and opportunity to deserving those rewards.
Ambition has taken a backseat to passivity, civility, and empowerment
As stated, perhaps we have forsaken the pursuit of opportunity equality (anyone can become anything) in favor of pursuing outcome equality (trophies for showing up).
While the difference between the two doesn’t offer an uncomplicated solution, we can’t throw out one for the other either. I applaud the gallant attempt often made to equal the playing field for all players; however, we can’t disincentivize the ambitious by removing that advantage. Capitalism rewards the spoils to those who earn them—and rewards the better product, service, or innovation.
Outcome equality is a political concept where everyone has approximately the same material wealth and income or in which the general economic conditions of everyone’s lives are similar. Achieving equal results generally involves reducing or eliminating material inequalities between people or households in society and usually involves a transfer of income or wealth from wealthier to poorer individuals, or adopting other measures to promote equality of condition.
“Critics of equality of opportunity note that while it is relatively easier to deal with unfairness for people with different races or genders, it is much harder to deal with social class since ‘one can never entirely extract people from their ancestry and upbringing.’ As a result, critics contend that efforts to bring fairness by equal opportunity are stymied by the difficulty of people having differing starting points at the beginning of the socio-economic competition. A person born into an upper-middle-class family will have greater advantages by the mere fact of birth than a person born into poverty.”[2]
These two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Both are possible.
Ambitious women get disdained (men too, but not as much)
From her 2019 Forbes article, “Why Ambition isn’t A Dirty Word for Women,” Caroline Castrillion wrote:
Reese Witherspoon said it best in her speech at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards when she declared, “I believe ambition is not a dirty word.”
Too often, ambitious women are viewed as pushy, selfish, and unlikeable. It’s not the success that is so off-putting but the desire for something more that seems to inspire feelings of disdain. Oh sure, it’s okay to say you were successful because of luck. You were in the right place at the right time. You got your foot in the door because you knew so-and-so. But once you imply, or better yet, state that you actually deserved it because you worked so hard—it’s not socially acceptable. The implication is that women don’t deserve to want more. Women don’t deserve to dream big. Well, I have news for you—they do.
There have been numerous studies conducted by leading research institutions such as Harvard and Columbia University, exploring the perception of ambitious women. The research shows that culturally, ambition is seen as a positive trait in men yet criticized in women. At Columbia Business School, Professor Frank Flynn presented half his class with a case study using the name “Heidi” on it and gave half the class the same case study with her name changed to “Howard.” The students rated Howard and Heidi equally competent, but while they liked Howard, they didn’t like Heidi. The more assertive a student found Heidi to be, the more they rejected her. This reaction is because the authoritative and dominant behaviors associated with leadership are viewed negatively in women. On the flip side, men who are successful and influential are seen in a positive light.
Society’s misguided perceptions and expectations are what make many women fear ambition. Ambitious women worry about being judged by society as a bad wife or a bad mother. Because studies show that men tend to avoid female partners with characteristics usually associated with professional ambition, single women fear being viewed as undesirable mates. Unfortunately, trying to appear more attractive to the opposite sex may hinder single women’s career progress. One study from researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research found that young female professionals tend to play down their ambitions around men if they’re not in serious relationships.
Making its debut next Wednesday, on International Women’s Day, the campaign, called “Embrace Ambition,” features Julianne Moore, Melinda Gates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Anna Wintour, Reese Witherspoon and other famous people (both male and female) talking in front of a scrim about reclaiming a word that has often been used to vilify women.
“I can think of a lot of dirty words,” Ms. Witherspoon says. “Ambition is not one of them.”[3]
Calling someone an “overachiever” is essentially insulting their personality
Fiona Scruggs from Radford University defends ambition in her article “Why We Need To End The Derogatory Use Of The Word ‘Overachiever’, Since when did putting one’s best foot forward become “overachieving?”
Calling someone an “overachiever” is essentially insulting their personality. Those who work hard to excel are driven by the wiring of their brain and heart. It takes dedication, sacrifice, and passion to go above and beyond expectations. Everyone is wired differently and should be respected for that. If someone finds enjoyment in challenging themselves, recognize that. Setting standards and actually meeting them are two completely different matters. Anyone can “say” they have a purpose or goal. Only those who dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to their ambition actually follow through.
Ambitious people report a higher overall life satisfaction.
In the Psychology Today article “Is Ambition Good or Bad? The psychology and philosophy of ambition” by Neel Burton M.D., he writes:
To this day, people still speak of ambition after Aristotle, as “healthy ambition”, “unhealthy ambition”, and “lack of ambition”. Healthy ambition can be understood as the measured striving for achievement or distinction, and unhealthy ambition as the immoderate or disordered striving for such. Healthy ambition is individually enabling and socially constructive, while unhealthy ambition is inhibiting and destructive, and more akin to greed.
Studies have found that, on average, ambitious people attain higher levels of education and income, build more prestigious careers, and, despite the nocuous effects of their ambition, report higher levels of overall life satisfaction. Owing to bad luck and poor judgment, most ambitious people eventually fall short of their ambitions, but that still lands them far ahead of their more unassuming peers.
If you want a deeper dive into the psychology of ambition, read Dr. Burtons’ article, as he states, “People shrink or expand into the degree and nature of their ambitions. Ambition needs to be cultivated and refined.”
John D. Patterson is the Co-founder & CEO of Influence Ecology and the senior Faculty Manager of Influential U. Since 1987, he has led programs and conferences teaching tens of thousands globally. His history includes corporate curriculum design focusing on business ecosystems, leadership, and high-performance training and development. His articles and appearances address commerce, culture, and climate. LinkedIn
- The Fundamentals of Transaction Program, Kirkland Tibbels, and John Patterson, States of Mind, Session 2.
- No equality in opportunity, Phillip Blond and John Milbank. The Guardian
- Why Ambition Isn’t A Dirty Word For Women, Caroline Castrillon, Forbes Magazine
- Why We Need To End The Derogatory Use Of The Word ‘Overachiever’, Since when did putting one’s best foot forward become “overachieving?” Fiona Scruggs, Radford University
- Is Ambition Good or Bad? The psychology and philosophy of ambition. Neel Burton M.D.
AUTHOR
John Patterson
Co-founder and CEO
INFLUENTIAL U
John Patterson co-founded and manages the faculty and consultants of Influential U global. Since 1987, he has led workshops, programs, and conferences for over 100k people in diverse professions, industries, and cultures. His history includes corporate curriculum design focusing on business ecosystems, influence, leadership, and high-performance training and development.
