Ambition without wreckage

In my opinion, ambition gets bad press. We've watched enough toxic leaders claw their way to the top that we've started to confuse the drive itself with the damage it sometimes leaves behind.

But ambition in and of itself isn't the problem. How people pursue it is.

The best leaders I've worked with are ferociously ambitious. They want more. For their teams, their organisations and themselves (always in that order). They don't see other people as obstacles or opportunities to exploit. They bring people with them.

They learn not only through structured development, but also through listening, to those who are more and less experienced than themselves. Then they put what they’ve learned into practice and move on.

Stolen ideas and broken colleagues aren't the price of ambition. They're evidence of character. Ambition doesn’t need victims or wreckage.