This weekend our family had two soccer games, one football game, a swim meet, a birthday party, and a sleepover - on top of all the normal stuff like grocery shopping. I write these newsletters on the weekend, and rather than skip this week's newsletter, I'm going to keep the schedule and change the scope by sharing a "shallow" dive instead of the normal deep dive.
(please enjoy this 3️⃣ minute read)
Shallow Dive on Collective Ambition
I did a Hogan Personality Inventory several years ago, and the lady reviewing the results with me told me I had ambition.
I told her the assessment was pretty accurate except for the part about ambition because that part wasn’t true.
Except, after sitting with it for a while, I decided her read on my data was probably right. I probably am ambitious, I just didn't think I was.
My journey to ultimately accept her assessment taught me something about different kinds of ambition.
One is constructive. The other is destructive.
Destructive Ambition
There are many examples of ambitious individuals, but for some reason, it’s Gordon Gecko, a character played by Michael Douglas in 1987’s “Wall Street” that comes to mind.
Gecko is ambitious. He wanted to be rich and successful. It doesn’t matter who he stepped on to get what he wanted (a results-oriented leader, leading reactively, for sure).
That’s the vision of ambition I had in my head during my Hogan assessment, and the one I resisted. That's not me!
In a milder form than Gecko’s movie character, I worked with an leader once who had a similar type of ambition. He was motivated by his own personal brand. His goal was to have his boss think he was amazing.
We all want our boss to think we’re amazing, of course. But when done destructively, it’s more about perception than substance.
It’s subtle, but this leader didn’t want the mission to succeed per se; he wanted his role in the mission’s success to be undeniable. The mission could fail as long as he came out looking good.
I call this type of ambition Personal Ambition. A person with Personal Ambition can destroy value for a business.
Sometimes it works out okay, as long as the mission's success stays aligned with the leader's perception. It troublesome when inevitably there's a divergence.
How I Came to Accept the Assessment
When I pondered ambition, I could see elements of it in my life. I’m self-motivated and goal-oriented for sure. Competing against myself is very motivating. It’s why I track exercise data; so I can keep getting better than I was yesterday.
Or, there's the fact that I’m trying to start multiple businesses. I wasn’t doing that at the time of the assessment, but that’s also an ambitious goal.
So what do I see as the difference between Gordon Gecko and me (besides a hundred million dollars)?
My ambition is more expansive. I want to do great a Crossfit, but I also want everyone to do great at Crossfit. I want to succeed at work, but I want all of us to achieve success.
I call this type of ambition Collective Ambition. A person with Collective Ambition creates value for a business. They’re willing to subsume their ego in service of the team and the mission.
This type of ambition is constructive even when things go poorly. That's because the mission is the boss and guiding star, not personal ego. A leader with this type of ambition sees themselves as part of a broader tapestry and can optimize for the collective outcome.
Differentiate Between the Types in Hiring
You want to hire people with drive and agency. These are the people that will get things done in your organization.
The hard thing is that drive can look really similar to Ambition. But Personal and Collective Ambition can look really similar, too - and one of them will cause a problem!
So how can you find Collective Ambition and drive, but weed out Personal Ambition?
Hiring is not a perfect science of course, but just knowing that there’s a difference between Ambition types can make you more effective in sussing them out.
Don’t just look at someone’s achievements. Ask how they achieved those results.
Find out what they would do when there’s tension between their brand and mission success. Which side do they optimize for in decision making?
Find the person who will be the tide that lifts all boats, not someone poking holes in other's.
Call to Action
Personal Ambition is a destructive type of ambition that’s driven by personal success. Collective Ambition is a constructive type of ambition that builds success for the team and the mission.
The call to action this week is to explore your own motivations. The world isn’t black and white, so you’re not fully on one end of the spectrum or the other, but you’ll tend to bias one way or the other.
Which side do you tend toward?
How have you seen that ambition affect yourself and others?
Aim to surround yourself - and become - the kind of leader whose ambition lifts others, not just themselves.
Kevin
