AMBITION SHOULD BE MADE OF STERNER STUFF
I had a friend who recently passed away and he loved the Shakespeare quote about ambition — it’s Brutus explaining to the Romans why Caesar’s death was necessary. Ambition without substance and strength was dangerous — empty power, prideful strutting, enemies probing for weakness. The flip side is greatness fueled by an intensity that can burn down the mission.
There are hundreds of leadership styles; unlike many things I find it hard to massage the qualities of leadership into clean categories that speak of success or failure. I’ve had dictators who were egotistical but benevolent and wise; they loved their coterie of acolytes, glowed when you stroked their good qualities, wrote some people off after one comment they didn’t like, made decisions in isolation, and lasted 15 years in a tough environment and did great things for people indirectly. The collaborative inclusive non-assertive committee chairman type would seem to be the category that got the most out of people, listened well, created an environment of empowerment and reasoned discourse, and moved things along at a measured pace— on occasion yes, but too often insecurity, indecisiveness a lack of ideas was driving this style, and when things went wrong there was blame, backtracking to cover gaps, and an environment of fear and uncertainty prevailed beneath the soft-spoken politeness.
I write this to reinforce Pete Ross’ idea about the impassioned leader with their rudeness and insensitivity and the occasional ‘this fucking sucks’ moment that knocks some people out. ‘She’d be great but her lack of people skills destroyed her,’ I heard about one great leader. A well-known politician with whom I spent a decade was rarely satisfied - and I grew every time I had to meet his demands. I didn’t need the first leader to practice people skills to placate me; my kindergarten teacher, yes, please be sweet, but at the top levels of leadership, push hard and be clear and let’s look at results. The politician was tough on people because if we responded to his demands for excellence, he was able to achieve more - more ideas, more information, more structure, more depth and his efforts were accelerated. One commonality between them: smart, respectful disagreement, even direct contradiction of some of their most extreme critiques, would be carefully considered and often change the direction of a problem area. And if I got cut down and told, ‘That’s shit. You don’t have any proof for that,’ I would internalize that and often say to myself: ‘Yeah, I didn’t have enough backing that idea, this isn’t Friday night at the bar spewing crap,’ and we’d move on, or maybe I’d revisit it later.
While a common feature of top leadership is deeply engaging people, I’ve seen that achieved a hundred ways, and the surface ‘shared leadership model’ with the people-person facade has often been problematic. Ambition needs to be made of sterner stuff — a little steel, an occasional dousing with vinegar, a bit of sarcasm when you’re off and need to be told it — I think I can handle that when millions of dollars and hundreds of people’s livelihoods are at stake.
