DS Cohen & AssociatesIn my previous article, I talked about aspiration and ambition. I suggested that ambition is good when balanced with one’s aspirations. But ambition can take us to places we did not previously imagine we could venture when ambition loses sight of the aspiration.
Ambition is related to a person’s sense of competitiveness and is driven and measured by external events. Ambition is extrinsic. When a person positions oneself in relation to others, the positioning creates goals and objectives driven by the outer world. Perhaps the person wants to break an athletic record. Maybe they desire to beat the competition in business. While ambition can be a positive driver toward success, ambition is only good when there is a healthy level of ambition balanced with aspiration, passion and values. When a person is so focused on their ambition and is no longer mindful of the values and purpose set out in their original aspiration, it becomes challenging for their aspiration to bring them back to a more reasonable level of ambition. Their ambition overruns their aspiration. The focus becomes solely on the objective of success as measured by external factors.
Walking In Purpose
In this video, Comedian Michael Jr. uses this completely improv moment as a great illustration for knowing your why and purpose in life.
Ambition Can Drive Success
When one’s ambition transcends their aspiration, there is an issue of maintaining ethical boundaries. A sign that ambition is overcoming and subjugating aspiration is when decisions are driven by ambition without regard to the limitations of the values of the aspiration. We need to allow aspiration to guide the decisions generated by ambition.
Suppose ambition is driving our standard of success. In that case, the satisfaction of exceeding someone else or accomplishing a business objective will soon vanish when another person or company surpasses them. You are back in a competitive state to outperform their new completion. Despite achieving a new goal and overcoming the new competition, they will continuously set higher objectives, always driving themselves and those working for them beyond the current state. The result is the closer they get to their current objective they drive too more. Satisfaction is always short-term. In a business context, you see this in the continuous pressure imposed on employees to improve continuously. You hear the feeling you are only as good as what you did for me today. The employee soon feels nothing is good enough. Short-term satisfaction is quickly replaced with the need to achieve more. For the person’s employees, this can lead to burnout, frustration, and dissatisfaction with their life. Perhaps it is one of the causes of what used to be labelled retirement in place, and now it is called quiet quitting.
When ambition and aspiration conflict
When ambition and aspiration conflict, the impact on employees is ambivalence, retiring in place or quit quitting.
Numerous examples of business leaders have abandoned their aspirations in the name of glory and achieving external admiration. Some of these people are:
- Ken Lay: Lay’s ambition to expand Enron grew to such a degree that it led to accounting fraud that eventually bankrupted the company.
- Elizabeth Holmes: Holmes’ ambition to revolutionize the healthcare industry led to massive fraud and false claims about her company, Theranos, resulting in the company’s disintegration and criminal charges against Holmes.
- Bernie Ebbers: Ebbers’ ambition to expand WorldCom caused him to ignore accounting fraud and inflate earnings, resulting in the company’s bankruptcy and a 25-year prison sentence for Ebbers.
- Elon Musk: Musk was driven to succeed in business and achieved immense success with his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, but sacrificed personal relationships and leisure time.
- Jeff Bezos: Bezos is known for his ambitious vision and dedication to success. However, he has also been criticized for his willingness to put ambition ahead of his workers’ safety and well-being.
- Steve Jobs: Jobs was driven by ambition and achieved incredible success with Apple, but he was also known for his tendency to put the drive to be first and achieve recognition ahead of people.
Coupling ambition with entitlement
When one reaches higher and higher and becomes accustomed to success, when people are given recognition beyond how others in a similar line of work are recognized, they believe they have earned entitlement. These people have strayed from their passion and aspirations and are solely focused on the recognition that comes with continuously moving to higher levels of ambition.
People who have always upped their success and, through ever-increasing ambition and accolades from others, feel entitled. Examples of this abound throughout history. I encountered when ambition and entitlement combined when I was staying at a hotel during an NBA All-Star weekend, and several players and team owners were also staying there. The head of food and beverage marvelled at how these millionaires feel so empowered that they are entitled to no pay for their meals and drinks. They just get up and walk away. But equally thankful that other players, embarrassed by their actions and humbler, would apologize and leave tips more than the unpaid bills.
Along with many ‘superstars,’ there are the superstars of business who also
fall into the definition of earned entitlement. It is when the person feels they have a right to benefits or privileges gained through their efforts and unconditionally recognized by others. Coupling the excessive focus on ever-increasing goals because of a higher and higher sense of ambition and mixing it with entitlement, you have a toxic leader. These leaders are often identified as arrogant, unaware of how they impact others; they don’t care once they are made aware.
When you have the confluence of blind ambition with entitlement, anything will justify any action if the person believes the desired results are accomplished.
The consequence of a company with a leader who has a combination of overactive ambition and entitlement is that the company will likely be in danger of making poor decisions and suffering from a lack of oversight. Their own personal interests often drive this type of leader, and they may not be aware of the consequences of their actions or take the time to consider what is best for the company. Unfortunately, many Boards of Directors set the leader up for the impropriety behaviour because they are looking for short-term financial gains or have a contract rewarding them for a quick financial win.
Troubling Signs
Signs that a leader is focusing on their own defection of success coupled with entitlement include:
- a lack of communication with other members of the team,
- unprofessional or inappropriate behaviour,
- a focus on short-term gains over long-term objectives,
- a disregard for the opinions and suggestions of others,
- taking credit for the success of others,
- being overly critical of their team,
- disregarding established processes and protocols
- taking risks or shortcuts
Food For Thought:
When Inspiration and ambition work together, and a person is moving toward their purpose, they have a strong sense of pride. The focus of one moving in purpose for a greater good can change the world.
As the person gains more and more to put oneself ahead in comparison to others, the drive becomes unhealthy – It is at some point in the journey a person believes they are entitled. You have developed false pride when the entitlement mentality meets up with an out-of-control ambition. When the suspiration is surpassed because of the power of the individual to realize things they never previously had, the aspiration disappears. At this point, the aspiration that might have been aligned with the greater good, empathy, compassion, gratitude, and commitment, is suppressed and disappears.
Ambition coupled with aspiration is essential to motivation and success. Together both together have a vital role to play in today’s workplace. It is essential to remain cognizant that long-term focus on employee happiness and engagement coupled with incentives and financial bonuses to retain employees can lead to an employee’s feeling of entitlement.
