Balancing Ambition and Patience

One of my favorite parts of leadership is working with people who are just getting started in their careers.  Most people enter the “real world” with passion that is almost palpable.  It comes from a combination of naiveté, audacity, and most of all, ambition.  For most, reality sets in over time, and our passions fade.  Some extraordinary few never lose the fire.  Many of those become visionaries and entrepreneurs who inspire and excite those around them.  What happens to the rest?  What becomes of the vast majority of idealists who leave college ready to take on the world?  Many simply burn out.  Their passion consumes them like a star consuming itself.  Others collapse under their own weight.

Why is that?  What happens to all that passion?  I believe the answer lies in a failure to find balance in life – a failure to balance ambition and patience.  The problem is that most of us fail to recognize how powerful ambition is.  Ambition is the fuel that drives us.  It can also make us impatient, and impatience can blind us to the opportunities and challenges we confront. 

Long-term success requires a strong foundation.  Most of us start our careers with basic foundational components –our gifts and talents, our education, and our experiences.  How do we improve what we have while developing and acquiring what we lack?  Experience!  Through trial and error, we learn the lessons that establish and solidify our foundation.  Failure to learn these lessons early in our careers can have devastating implications later.  Mistakes we make at age twenty-five teach important lessons.  At forty, the same mistakes end careers. 

What can we, as leaders, do to help create balance?  How can we feed and nurture ambition through patient and deliberate development? 

• Invest time and energy to understand what motivates those we lead.  This seems obvious, but one of the most common complaints about managers is our failure to understand the unique needs and ambitions of those we lead.  This understanding also gives us the ability to learn the strengths and weakness of those we lead.  This in turn enables us to provide the growth opportunities and experiences that will serve them best.
• Be honest about what it takes to progress in your organization.  My first real job was with a “Baby Bell.”  It was less than four years after the breakup of the Bell System.  The entire industry was in flux.  Promotions were non-existent.  I quickly became frustrated, because my ambitions were out of alignment with the reality of our corporate culture.  This frustration led to a desire to leave.  An honest assessment of the opportunities would have given me the ability to make informed career decisions.  It would have built trust and kept me engaged.  How can candid conversations keep those we lead fully engaged?
• Help people find what motivates and inspires them.  Many people entering the workforce are still searching for what motivates and inspires them.  As leaders, we have the opportunity to leverage passion and expose enthusiasm.  Create opportunities for new employees to use different skills.  Help them find what they like and what they don’t. 
• Encourage learning by rewarding risk taking and appreciating the lessons in failure.  Every teacher knows that students will learn more from failure than success.  The challenge lies in helping them see the lessons rather than focusing on the failure.  Consider how your reward system might be punishing failures rather than encouraging risk taking and learning.
• Create your own legends.  Every organization has a wunderkind – the person whose meteoric career becomes the goal for every new hire.  Most legends are a combination of fact and fiction.  Fact, Sergey Brin and Larry Page dropped out of college, founded Google, and became billionaires.  Fiction, dropping out of college is a proven path to career success.  For every superstar countless others failed.  As a leader, we can make legends out of those who follow a more traditional path to success.  
• Make mentoring a key part of your leadership development.  One of the best ways to demonstrate your commitment is by investing your time and attention.  Mentoring exposes the mentee to the realities of leadership.  It also gives them a forum to voice their ideas.

Nothing we can do can diminish the ambition of young people starting their careers, nor would we want to.  Personally, I am always looking for ways to rekindle my own passion.  Part of the way I do that is by working with students and young professionals.  Their passion and ambition can be contagious and energizing.  Our challenge is to help them temper this ambition with a healthy dose of patience.  Striking the right balance is the best path to realizing their potential.