Are you ambitious?  My guess is that some of you would say in many ways you are. However, you might not publicly claim it because of all the negativity surrounding ambition. Certainly, we have all experienced that from others in our professional life, perhaps in your personal life, and on the national stage.

Our instincts are correct in this. There are positive and negative aspects to ambition. And some of the positive aspects can help you grow as a leader. Amina AlTai offers five insights from her new book, The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living in her article “How to Break Free From the Ambition Trap.” Here are her five, along with my usual comments:

1. We need to redefine ambition – At its core, ambition is about growing in some way. The negative association has to do with growing powerful and/or rich and then cruel or callous. The ambition you want to have is about growing in knowledge to better serve your community. Librarians are lifelong learners who can and should embrace their ambition to learn and their desire to share.
2. There are two types of ambition– AlTai looks closely at the two types which she calls painful and purposeful ambition. The painful ambition, which is more familiar, is focused on winning no matter the cost. We can all identify those who want to show they are better than others. A history of feeling betrayed makes them pursue control. Purposeful ambition is focused on purpose and collaboration. This speaks to our core values as librarians. It looks to what we want to achieve and the best means to get there.
3. Identity and ambition are deeply intertwined – According to AlTai “Ambition doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is shaped and constrained by identity.” You know the identity society has given you. At various times, your ambition will be attributed to your identify and treated accordingly. And it will be different depending on the identity. How will you react to this? Do you overperform to gain approval or underperform to stay safe. It will take courage to have positive/purposeful ambition, but so much is at stake. We must be ambitious.
4. It’s not about renouncing ambition, but allowing ambition to come from innate gifts – As AlTai says, “We need to leverage the best of us. We all have a unique form of brilliance, a rare talent or ability that is specific to us and that we came to this planet to share.” As a librarian you have so many skills: tech, research, people, interdisciplinary and more. We need to know when and where to use these to achieve our goals. We want our students to feel safe in our library and be ready for whatever the future holds.
5. Ambition is cyclical – Most of us think of positive or negative ambition always continuing to grow. AlTai points to the necessity to pause. I see it as a reminder for self-care. You cannot always be chasing a goal, despite the messages in our hustle culture. We need to remember that constant giving is draining. In order to serve, we need the downtime to recharge.  Too many need us to skip the need to recharge.

Abition is not a “dirty word.” Like it or not, comfortable with the idea or not, leaders are ambitious. We have goals, a Vision and Mission and the determination to live into them. Our drive is powerful and should not be dampened. Students, teachers, and administrators are counting on us to continue to strive for growing and doing better.