10 Best Practices for Healthy Career Ambition

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I was speaking with two different mentees of mine in their first year out of college last week as well as a few senior coaching clients before Christmas about the topic of career ambition. A central theme that ran through all of these conversations was the determination they all had to get promoted and climb the corporate ladder as quickly as possible. These talented men and women are all more than capable of advancing in title and responsibility. Each had their own specific and well-thought-out reasons for seeking rapid career growth.

I found myself giving each of them similar coaching on prudent ways to think about their careers and best practices for how to be appropriately ambitious. Through decades of observation and experience, I know that blind ambition and chasing titles can trigger a host of career issues, damage relationships and ultimately derail an otherwise promising career. On the other hand, prudent judgment, patience and a host of other best practices I shared can lead to sustainable careers over time that allow for appropriate career growth. Appropriate and measured ambition, not blind ambition, should always be the focus.

Below are 10 best practices for healthy ambition I recently shared with these future and current leaders that I hope you find to be helpful.

1. Know where you want to go. Have a career plan that is specific and measurable if possible and avoid vagueness and ambiguity. Why does the next title make sense for me and will it help me get closer to my goal? Will I gain the skills and experiences I need down the road? Will the role offer me the support, resources and challenge I need to keep growing and learning? Do I have reasonable time frames for the career progression I seek?
2. Look in the mirror. Am I ready for the next role? How will I know and who can I get honest feedback from? If am not ready, how can I prepare myself and gain the experience I need? What have I done to clearly demonstrate I am deserving of the role? Can I point to my proven body of work and how does that stack up against others being considered for the role I am seeking? Am I seeking this new role mainly because I am competitive and want to feel like I am “winning”?
3. Cultivate mentors and advocates. Who will guide me, push me and hold me accountable as I grow my career? Have I secured mentorship from leaders who can help me see my blind spots? Who will advocate for me when I am not in the room? ?Have I built effective relationships with more influential senior leaders, shared my career goals and sought their assistance?
4. Balance ambition with the right priorities. What stage of life am I in right now? Am I single with work as my main focus? Newly married or married with children? Do I have personal challenges, my own or with those I care about, that need to be carefully considered? Am I taking good care of my mental, physical and spiritual health? Will the next job demand sacrifices in these areas I am not prepared to give? Can I truly define career success for myself? We have to be respectful of the seasons of life as we consider our careers. Sometimes the next rung of the corporate ladder may demand more from us than we are prepared to give. We need to use discernment and prudent judgment to understand the answer. Helpful question for busy and ambitious professionals with families: Does my family exist to support my job or does my job exist to support my family? ?
5. Be patient. Careers are like roller coasters and the virtue of patience is always a good best practice. Sometimes waiting is the best approach instead of chasing the next role as soon as it becomes available. Sometimes we need to pass on an opportunity and take the longer view of waiting for a better one. We should do our homework, talk to mentors and family members and consult with trusted friends/colleagues to gather useful input for this decision. Others can often see what we cannot or are unwilling to see.
6. Don't be a broken record. We have all been around people who seem obsessed with getting promoted. It is all they talk about. Every performance review and check-in with a supervisor cannot be focused on promotion. Read the room and be more discerning about career discussions. Not doing this well creates frustration and actually winds up limiting careers and holding people back. In my experience, I was usually tapped for new opportunities over my career when I just quietly focused on doing my best in my current job.
7. Be so good they can’t ignore you. To piggyback on point #6, we should focus on consistently doing excellent work in our current roles. The old adage of “letting your work do the talking” still has great merit, but we tend to overlook this mantra in favor of other methods that seem easier, but often lead to frustration. One very positive aspect of focusing on this best practice is the genuine respect you earn from your colleagues and the acknowledgement that you clearly earned a promotion when it comes your way.
8. Pick your battles, be bold and show courage. There will be moments throughout our careers when it is appropriate to raise our hands and volunteer for a difficult new project that offers an opportunity to shine or take on a new role filled with risk because we have the confidence that we can get the job done. My other best practices were grounded in careful discernment and thoughtfulness, but there will be times when we have to put all our chips on the table and bet on ourselves. The best leaders I know develop a 6th sense about when to make the big career bets and usually excel at the other best practices I have shared.
9. Embrace Magnanimity and Humility. In his excellent book, Created for Greatness, author Alexandre Havard identifies the two critical virtues for all leaders to possess: magnanimity and humility. As it relates to ambition, he defines magnanimity as pursuing our personal call to greatness. We have all been made for a purpose. What is it? Appropriate ambition can help in the pursuit of this calling. Humility, as defined by Havard, is ensuring that we always pursue this call to greatness in the service of others. If we are responding to the call to greatness and doing everything we can to serve others, I can't think of a more inspiring approach to a successful career.
10. Be authentic. This is so basic, yet so powerful: We should never sacrifice who we are for career success. There may be a temptation to hide away a bit of ourselves as we climb the corporate ladder in order to “fit in” or not “rock the boat”. Over time, this has a serious negative effect and is a frequent topic of discussions in my network with leaders seeking to return to their more authentic selves. Healthy career ambition, allowing us to be true to ourselves in the process, should always be the goal.

I hope you find this list helpful as you pursue your own career goals. Career ambition is certainly not a bad thing, but we need to temper it with the best practices shared here and maybe others that work for you. We also need to make sure our priorities are straight.

I will leave you with a description of a meme I have seen several times with an image of a tombstone in a graveyard that reads: “He Had a Great Career”. As we pursue our careers and practice appropriate ambition, I hope we will agree the goal is never to have this tombstone for ourselves. We can get so wrapped up in our jobs and climbing the corporate ladder that we forget or ignore the richer and fuller lives awaiting us when we make our faith, families, health, and relationships more important than our careers. These are my priorities and because I have aligned my ambitions and focus around honoring these priorities in this order, my career has always thrived. I am hopeful you will reflect on these ideas and find the path that works best for you.

Good luck!

*My newest book, Becoming a More Thoughtful Leader, is available from Amazon! This book can be an excellent companion and guide for you to make the most of the coming year. If you would like to learn more about the book, read over 60 humbling 5-star reviews and purchase a copy, click here.

Randy Hain is the president of Serviam Partners, the award-winning author of 11 books, an executive coach, leadership consultant and thought leader on candor, clarity, time management and business relationships. He is also the co-founder of The Leadership Foundry.