Is Your Ambition Stronger Than Your Ego?
Ambition means doing everything it takes to level up your emotional and technical skillsets to become the leader you want to be.
Ego tells you to ignore feedback and stay the course. But your colleagues decide who gets promoted. So a strong Ego causes you to ignore the most important data about how your interpersonal behavior is being received.
Ambitious private equity professionals call me when they sense something they're doing is not working. We investigate what’s not working, devise new strategies, and my clients evolve into more effective leaders.
Occasionally, a professional whose “ego > ambition” comes my way. Whether they’re looking to bemoan the injustice of their firms, or their firm sent them to me as a wakeup call, their fragile ego is preventing them from looking within. Everything is being done to them; they have no agency. They feel mistreated by the system and report that it's everyone else who's the problem.
I appreciate the elegant survival mechanism of remaining delusional and not wanting to hear criticism of oneself; criticism hurts the fragile ego. But tragically these incredibly high potential professionals often plateau and stay stuck, hampered by their unwillingness to look in the mirror.
It takes courage to look within one's self -- to look beyond the protective delusions which we think keep us safe. Through coaching, those professionals whose Ambition > Ego accelerate ahead of the pack and self-actualize. It's magic.
Which part of you is driving the bus: your Ego or Ambition?
Additional Reading
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, by Eckhart Tolle
What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith
Golf Is Not A Game of Perfect, by Dr. Bob Rotella
What To Ask the Person In the Mirror, by Rob Kaplan
Energy Leadership: The 7 Level Framework for Mastery in Business and Life, by Bruce Schneider