Ambition: The Double-Edged Sword of Leadership

I have spent the better part of my 14 year career with the State of Florida watching leaders, learning from leaders, creating leadership training, and talking about leadership. I’m currently enrolled at Florida State University, working towards another Master’s degree, this time in Organizational Management and Communication, because understanding how leaders shape organizations means I can better support how leaders influence culture, motivate teams, navigate change, and build relationships that drive results.

The biggest issue we are seeing in today’s workforce is “bad” leadership. There are a ton of qualities that can be considered “bad” but one leadership quality that has both a positive and negative connotation that hasn’t been talked about enough is ambition. I’ve seen two prevalent kinds of ambition: the selfish and the selfless, and while ambition is often celebrated as a defining characteristic of successful leaders, many of whom are fueling innovation, driving results, and pushing organizations toward growth, it doesn’t come without its downfalls. In this two-part series covering ambition, I’m going to start with the destructive kind.

The Selfish Ambition

When a leader’s ambition becomes self-serving rather than purpose-driven, it can quietly erode the very foundation of effective leadership. Leaders with selfish ambition are often focused on personal advancement, recognition, or influence at the expense of the people they lead. Decisions become centered on visibility rather than value; with rational employees often asking “why are we doing this?“, and never getting a straight answer, or they are presented with the age-old curt response of “because executive leadership says so“, effectively giving the employees no safe choice to push back. The employee who sees the leader’s selfish ambition can read between the lines, and they know this decision was pitched for the sake of looking good, without thinking of the consequences. The ambitious leader here doesn’t care how their idea gets executed, or who suffers in their pursuit of excellence; even if that means driving quality team members to quit – it’s a casualty they are willing to accept as a side effect of their perceived greatness.

There is a “two-faced” nature to this type of leader. While they may praise the team for their accomplishments on an “all hands” call, or when they feel particularly inclined to clear some time on their always seemingly busy schedule to type up an office-wide email (that they ran through the newest AI tool; and spoilers: your team can tell), what’s actually happening in conference rooms with “higher-ups” is that those accomplishments are touted as individual victories. When employees believe the actions of their leader are self-serving or insincere, they begin to feel like stepping stones instead of valued contributors. Eventually, what little trust there was begins to deteriorate.

The astute employee recognizes that the kind words on the “all hands” call or the email to the team are just ‘check the box’ actions to keep as documentation showcasing “effective leadership”. I’ve witnessed other ‘check the box’ actions happen firsthand. I once saw a leader take 5 minutes, no more or less, to “walk the floor”. They jettisoned from cubicle to cubicle, making superficial pleasantries, but not making actual connections. During these five-minute speed runs, they made sure to announce how busy they were and how much executive leadership needed them to attend XYZ meeting. Like a psychological warfare tactic, the employee is made to feel special because the big boss came around to say hello, and so the employee begins to think how lucky they must be when the boss is soo busy but takes the time to compliment the new cubicle decor. It was no shock to me that after a while, the five-minute speed runs did not bring people back from becoming less engaged, confused about the mission, or their purpose on the team. The repercussions were that innovation suffered, and destructive gossip began to thrive as an outlet for frustration.

The damage this type of leader inflicts on culture and team morale isn’t always immediate, but it is inevitable. When employees start to see that a leader is more concerned with personal success and their next career move, you can expect attrition to creep in, and ultimately, the team will lose good employees. How your leader reacts to those losses is important; take note.

For example, I recently reconnected with a manager whose leader implemented a return-to-office initiative, and they were told it was the will of the Governor (but nothing from said Governor has ever been sent out in writing). The leader was acting as the “mouthpiece” for this decision, but in their quest to be the best, this leader wanted their whole branch of employees to be the first in the Department to show a 100% return to office rate. Staff recently hired to work remotely on that manager’s team were told they had an unrealistic number of days to comply and report to a physical location. When over 50% of that team quit, the leader blamed the employees who resigned and allowed their administrative assistant to openly call those team members “lazy”. Leadership was convinced they could find talented employees who weren’t “lazy” and would want to work in an office. When we talked about the team, the manager shared they were still understaffed, and it’s been OVER a year. Talk about a toxic culture.

Culture itself is built on what leaders consistently reward, recognize, and prioritize. A leader driven by selfish ambition creates an environment where silos for control outweigh collaboration, personal credit matters more than contribution, and appearances become more important than authenticity.

Over time, morale declines as employees become disengaged, cynical, and disconnected from the organization’s mission. People stop sharing ideas, taking risks, and investing discretionary effort because they no longer feel their contributions matter, and in some way, when employees shut down, they feel like they can take a semblance of control back and not feed success to the selfish, ambitious leader. It’s a dangerous move, but who can blame the employee?

The tragedy of selfish ambition is that it often produces the exact opposite outcome a leader intends. In pursuit of influence, they lose credibility. In pursuit of recognition, they lose respect. In pursuit of advancement, they lose the trust and commitment of the very people they depend on to succeed. But ambition itself is not the problem. In fact, some of the most admired leaders I have encountered were incredibly ambitious. The difference was that their ambition was directed outward, not inward. In Part Two, we’ll explore selfless ambition and why the leaders who leave the greatest impact are often the ones who are focused on elevating others rather than themselves.

I’ll leave you with this; if you are in a leadership role, and ambition is the leadership trait you are most known for, it may be worth asking a difficult question: Are people following because they believe in your vision, or because they have no other choice? The answer often determines whether you are building a team or simply building yourself.