Is your ambition getting the best of you?
Problem: With your promotion into management, you are more determined than ever to impress your boss and reach your goals. However, you have a friend who keeps telling you that you are “too career-focused.” You want to succeed, but you worry that your ambition is going too far.
Solution: Ambition can take you far in life, but don’t let your ambition take over your life. If you don’t keep it in check, you risk damaging relationships and isolating yourself. Stick to these rules:
- Don’t sacrifice your principles. It’s OK to set challenging goals, but never let your drive to succeed corrupt your values. If you step on people as you climb to the top, you won’t have a support system once you arrive there.
- Don’t expect others to match your ambition. People place different values on work and success. Don’t look down on others—or punish them—for not holding your same priorities.
- Don’t forget to nurture your personal life. Create a life outside of work that you love. Aim to leave the office at quitting time at least two days per week. Make time to spend with family and friends.
- Don’t think you are a failure. If you fall short of your own expectations, don’t blame yourself. Life changes, and so do our priorities. Create a new vision and begin working toward that.
—Adapted from Inspired Leadership: Propel Your People to New Heights, WorkplaceTrainingCenter.com.
Feel like you could be more ambitious? Learn how to foster your own ambition and other core leadership values in the brand-new training tool Inspired Leadership: Propel Your People to New Heights.
If you find yourself in some leadership capacity, you play an enormous role in the lives of your employees and in the success of your organization. People succeed and organizations succeed because their leaders succeed.
Inspired Leadership: Propel Your Employees to New Heights provides you with advice for more effectively leading your team or organization. Learn the keys to becoming a respected and trusted leader, to building employee loyalty and to driving creativity at every level in your organization.
This multimedia resource includes:
- The 17-minute video Bottom-Up Innovation: Unleash the Creative Intelligence of Everyone in Your Organization, with a companion Trainer’s Guide and Viewer’s Guide.
- The 60-minute audio conference presentation No Leader Does It Alone: Empower Your Team to Succeed!
- A 65-page workbook stuffed full of best practices, guides, tips, quizzes and more.
- A Customizable, Print-Ready Forms CD trainers and trainees can reference again and again.
Click here to view the Table of Contents.
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