Do you have to be ambitious to be a good leader?

“The teeth that scratch the parquet.” This famous expression, an image of human ambition, sounds like a judgment. Indeed, the ambitious who seeks success, status and money at all costs. The one who always wants more for purely personal purposes. But is ambition confined only to this pejorative straitjacket? Ambition, if it is perceived so negatively, However, can it not be at the best service? Do you have to have ambition to be a real leader?

The leadership, it is the ability to realize a vision, by mobilizing individuals who have the talents necessary to build it. To do this, the leader must be ambitious, both for himself and for others. On the other hand, it is illusory to think that leadership is synonymous with success or wealth. So, is there a good ambition and a bad ambition? As a leader, how can you maintain this collective ambition in the service of your vision?

Leadership: the ambiguity of personal ambition

Leadership should not only be linked to personal ambition

The Latin etymology ofambition is the following: “ambio” and “ambio”, which means “to turn around” or “in circles.” It echoes Roman Antiquity, when notable people, vying for the posts of senators, strutted about in the public square and went around the city for the sole purpose of seducing voters. Thus, ambition was already associated with a form of individualism and opportunism motivated by a quest for power or the lure of gain.

Behind leadership, there is a fantastic notion in which the leading is seen as a savior, empowered. Moreover, it is spontaneously accepted that, in order to achieve this status, the leader must be driven by a form of ambition. However, the latter cannot be a leader if he is focused only on his ego. If this is the case, he will only think about his personal ambition, in other words, what he wants to exceed for himself. It will neither be attentive to its organization and its environment, nor will it be in a position to have a real collective vision. On the contrary, he will go towards what is favorable for himself, sometimes turning out to be contrary to what is beneficial for the greatest number.

Thus, it is necessary to differentiate the real leadership, of the simple power of arbitration; telling individuals what they should do, without an overview or concern for the other. In this case, the ambition is personal because it is at the service of a quest for status and power.

Far be it from me to deny power. It takes them to be in a position to lead and inspire individuals. However, personal ambition must be altruistic.

Personal ambition at the service of the concept of leadership

For demonstrate leadership, ambition for yourself is essential. It allows you to have the courage to make things happen, to question yourself and to confront the unknown. The leader has the ambition for himself to surpass himself for others, for the vision. He does not have the ambition to obtain, to remain in the comfort of his executive status. It is on the move toward something bigger, involving its entire environment.

Movement is very important in concept of leadership. It is both the ability to set oneself in motion, but also to set an entire organization in motion. The leader has the ambition to leave an imprint, to create value. He maintains his vision by being active, with the desire to instill his own ambition, by sharing, listening, supporting, exchanging, impacting, rewarding and uplifting. To demonstrate leadership, personal ambition must be shared to become a collective ambition.

Leadership is about showing collective ambition

Leadership is first and foremost about leading others to success. A true leader has the ambition to make his organization want to share a common vision to create human and material wealth. In other words, leadership is a factor of external and internal growth, both personal and organizational.

A passionate leader communicates his own ambition, which then becomes a great collective ambition capable of making things happen. By infusing positive energy, he inspires confidence in the people he surrounds himself with. They themselves trust him.

We then come back to what is most fundamental: leadership is not a Hierarchical status but on the contrary, real relational chemistry. Each of us can find ourselves, at a specific moment, in a leadership situation, driven by a collective ambition.The leader should not stifle leadership movements of its teams. It must guide and share them. Only in this way will he be able to carry his vision to the end.

So that collective ambition always takes precedence

First of all, leadership is not a constant in life. A leader shows leadership at a certain point in time, driven by a collective ambition. On the other hand, an individual can have ambition without being a leader with a vision for the organization.

THEambition Collective is something that can be cultivated. It is not innate and can, if you are careful, turn into a purely personal ambition.

So why did he, like many others, stop believing in his vision? To believe in the power of the collective?

In my experience, a leader starts to think only about his own benefits when he realizes the difficulty of getting an organization to believe in his vision. You have to convince and work hard to make it from dream to reality. He then realizes that he is not a superman capable of lifting mountains alone.

A leader who no longer has collective ambition is a leader who refuses work and proximity to those around him. It is often that he does not have the wisdom to accept that his qualities are not enough and that it is therefore necessary to surround himself.

A successful leader is a leader who, on the one hand, has a realistic and measured ambition, and who, on the other hand, surrounds himself with individuals who are better than himself, or complementary, able to confront him and stimulate his creativity and that of others. Its ambition must be to develop leadership of his surroundings.

Take as an example that of the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard. At the age of 83, Yvon fully embraced his vision (never lost sight of) by donating his business for ecological purposes. It is by cultivating, his entire life, his collective ambition, through work and team spirit, that he managed to inspire his company to the end.

Recently, I had a fascinating exchange with the director of a startup in the real estate sector. As a leader, he compared himself to a tightrope walker balancing on a rope. It's finding this balance, between having enough will to maintain your vision and following your teams. He is constantly on the move and takes risks, moving forward both according to his intuitions and the collective ambition of his teams. It is this alternation that makes a good leader.

Would you also like to balance on a rope? What if I told you that the best way to do this is above all to know yourself. That's the whole point of Self-Leadership Program, a personal journey whose first aim is to self-discovery.

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