Original Article by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
Summary:
**Understanding Ambition: A Powerful Yet Tricky Force**
Ambition is one of the most powerful forces that drives people. It pushes us to go beyond just surviving. Ambition helps people build, create, improve, and achieve more than what already exists. Studies show that ambition plays a big role in how much education someone gets, how successful they are in their career, how well they perform at work, and even how much money they make.
At its heart, ambition means not being satisfied with how things are. It’s the inner push to grow, change, and challenge limits—both personal and social. In a way, ambition means never feeling like you've done enough. It drives leaders to take charge, dream up new ideas, and bring people together to work toward something bigger. It fuels entrepreneurs to take risks and believe that things can and should be better. Without ambition, progress would slow down. With it, people push past old rules, solve problems, and build new solutions.
The world we live in has been shaped by ambitious people—those who didn’t want to accept the way things were. From the discovery of fire to the invention of artificial intelligence, major breakthroughs have happened because some people wanted to leave a mark. Ambition turns frustration into action and ideas into real things. It helps explain why certain people become leaders or inventors, and why societies grow and change. But ambition must be used carefully and ethically. When used right, it helps everyone, not just the person pursuing their dream.
**The Need for Balance**
Like many powerful traits, ambition works best in balance. If someone has too little ambition, they might drift through life without direction or purpose. But if someone has too much, it can become an obsession. This obsession can take over their life, making them ignore teamwork, relationships, or even right and wrong. When ambition goes too far, it stops helping and starts demanding—often asking people to give up their values, relationships, and well-being.
Too much ambition can make people see themselves as heroes in a competition, rather than as team members working toward a shared goal. This can lead to a toxic work culture where people no longer trust each other. A person focused only on their own success may hurt the team and the organization, even if they get great results.
Ambition without limits can also lead to greed—a hunger not just to succeed, but to dominate. This kind of mindset can excuse unethical behavior, treat people as tools, and destroy what makes a business or team healthy. In the end, businesses built only on ambition often collapse from burnout, bad decisions, or scandals.
**A Real Example: WeWork and Adam Neumann**
Adam Neumann, the co-founder and former CEO of WeWork, is a clear example of what can go wrong when ambition goes too far. Neumann had a big dream: to change how people live and work. His passion and energy helped WeWork grow very fast, with billions of dollars in investments. At one point, the company was valued at $47 billion.
But Neumann’s ambition started to get out of control. He expanded into housing and education, even when those ideas didn’t fit with the company’s main business. Reports came out that he was behaving erratically and mixing his personal interests with company money. The company culture started to revolve around his personal image instead of smart leadership.
In 2019, WeWork tried to go public, but investors started asking tough questions. They found problems with the company’s finances and with Neumann’s leadership. The stock offering failed, Neumann had to step down, and the company’s value dropped quickly. Neumann’s ambition wasn’t bad in itself—but without discipline and humility, it ended up hurting the company.
**The Healthiest Kind of Ambition**
The best kind of ambition is connected to a sense of purpose. It includes self-awareness and a desire to help others, not just to get ahead personally. Healthy ambition lifts everyone—not just the person who’s racing to the top.