Ambition is Not a Bad Word

From the moment I started working, I dreamt of being at the top. It was a secret that I kept to myself for decades. In one of my first jobs at a local smoothie shop, the store manager was a senior in high school. Seeing her, still so young and in charge, made me believe that I could do that, too.

But I never told anyone I wanted such a job. I was ashamed of it. Subconsciously, I came to believe that leadership positions were a reward for those who got recognized for doing great work. Consequently, those who asked for recognition would be seen as arrogant and unworthy.

I Was Afraid to Ask (Okay… I still am)

This fear followed me for years. While fantasizing about running each of the organizations I worked for, I also kept these thoughts very very quiet. For instance, when I was exploring graduate school programs, my boss encouraged me to look into Social Work programs, like she had done. When I told her I found the program I wanted – Nonprofit Management – she looked at me with raised eyebrows and said, “What would you do with that? Oh, do you want a job like mine?” I answered meekly, “Something like that.” But, what I was actually thinking was, “No. I want your boss’s boss’s job.”

Why was I afraid to say that? Why did I believe that wanting the top seat was a bad thing? I thought she’d look at me with some kind of revulsion, or worse, that she would laugh at me.

I Believed Mommies Weren’t Leaders

As I moved on in my career, my fear of my own ambition got conflated with another dream – to become a mother. I’ve dreamed of being a mother my whole life. Like many women, I had fantasies of sweet children that I would lovingly stroll down the neighborhood street. Somehow these fantasies never included slobbering, tantruming toddlers – but that’s a blog post for another time.

There was a more important missing element in these fantasies – my career. While I fantasized about being at the top, I also fantasized about being the perfect magazine mommy. But, I never brought these two images together in my head. To me, as it is for so many women, I saw them as completely distinct from one another.

Pushing Pause on Career

When I was getting ready to start a family, there were a number of women in my life who had returned to the workforce after taking a lengthy hiatus to care for their young children. By the time I met these women, they were rock stars in their work, but I absorbed the parts of their stories about taking a break. It seemed to be such a successful model for them that I began to believe it was the ideal model for balancing motherhood and career.

I tried it once. I spent a summer working only a few hours a week and caring for my daughter every day. It was the summer she turned one. The first four weeks were glorious. I basked in this gift of time to spend with her and went on walks with other mommies and did the laundry every day. The second month I started to get a little bored. And by the third month, I swear there were days when my daughter and I would wake up in the morning, look at each other and think, “Oh, you again?” It clearly wasn’t working. She needed friends and a structured environment that I was ill-prepared to offer her. I needed adult interactions and conversations that revolved around issues I cared deeply about. She started preschool that fall and I started working again.

There are so many ways to be a good working mom

It was around that time that I started looking around and seeing a vast rainbow of motherhood options. There were the full-time stay-at-home moms, the working dawn to midnight crowd, the part-time workers, the full-time nanny employers, and so many in between. There were leaders who were mothers. And oh by the way, there were plenty of leaders who were great fathers.

I Was Lucky as Hell

I wish I could say that the moral of my story is to ask for what you want and deserve. The truth is, I never got over my own fears of ambition. I still struggle to share my ambitions and I still worry that I will be disliked or laughed at. Once these secrets are revealed, I worry that everyone will know that I’m a failure if I don’t achieve these dreams.

I was lucky as hell in my career. While I worked very hard and strove for excellence, I also worked for people who saw my talent and didn’t wait for me to ask. They asked me. And by some kind of divine intervention, I was offered a big leadership position. It took a full year as an executive before I thought that just maybe I might actually deserve this role. Perhaps all the education and hard work and results I had delivered actually equated to this role. Some days – too many days – I still have to remind myself.

It’s Not For Everyone

Because I spent my entire working life hiding my ambition, beginning at 16 years old, I also came to believe that everyone else was doing that, too. I thought we all wanted the top seat and it was a fierce, silent race to the top. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I came to realize that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

When I took on my executive role, I spent some time hiding from the staff. Not literally hiding. I was hiding many parts of myself: my dreams, my beliefs, my ambition. And what most great coaches and psychologists will tell you is that when you hide a part of yourself it affects the rest of your life. My hiding made me timid and weak, not great qualities in a leader. It lead to my habit of ruinous empathy. 

Once I came to realize that everyone I worked with had their own set of hopes and dreams and most of them had nothing to do with climbing to the top, then I was able to embrace my own role and become more open about what I believed.

And that led to the final lesson:

I got better at my job when I embraced my own ambition.

There is a calling deep in my soul to lead. It’s something that’s been a part of me as long as I can remember, back to my elementary school days. It’s a part of my soul that I am only now starting to truly reveal and try to understand. I’m not sure exactly where I’m going on this journey just yet. But what I do know is that the more I embrace my true self -- which includes a passionate ambition -- I’m actually much better at my job.

If I could go back and meet my timid ambition-hiding self, I would firmly and kindly hold her hands and whisper, “Don’t be afraid of you. Ambition is not a bad word. Ambition is one of them many gifts you’ve been given. Hold onto it, embrace it, and go for it.”