Ambition, in its purest form, is the desire for success and the driver for individuals, organisations, and governments alike in achieving excellence. Ambition holds no limits and no one is spared from its intoxicating allure. The desire to become successful, the yearning for the betterment of others. These are all ambition common to us, humans. Ambition in itself is neither good or bad, but the effects are. While it does drive people to work harder, it could also cause people to suffer. It drives societies forward but in its wake, ruthlessness is also born in order to achieve the desired outcome. While I agree that ambition is good for the most part, I would not say that it has always been good as in some instances, ambition serves as a detriment rather than a force for good.
To individuals, ambition has always been defined as the hunger to succeed to attain the future one envisage. Ambition festers in the soul of the average person wanting to be something more than himself – to give himself either verification of his existence or to strive to reach the very limits of excellence. It has given us many greats of our time, from Muhammad Ali in boxing to Lionel Messi in football. These athletes exemplified how ambition can be the force for good individually as their ambition help them to pull themselves out of dark times and propelled them into the forefront of success. Lionel Messi was born with a gene that prevented him from growing taller, which could have ended his sporting career as it was a perceived norm for players to be of a certain height to be effective in playing football. His ambition to prove his doubters wrong and the ambition to achieve greatness despite the setback launched him to the pinnacle of excellence of sports, where he is now regarded as one of the greatest ever to have graced football. This goes to show that ambition is good as it pushes one to overcome his own setback, regardless of what it is, and is the catalyst for individual success as not only did Messi become what he set out to be, he also broke the perceived norm that athletes need to be tall. He paved the way for many others who may not be tall to equally have a chance in sports by serving as their inspiration. Hence it can be seen that ambition is good for individuals, and even those around them as it is the driver for people to achieve excellence.
Ambition in organisations too can be a great force for good not just for the firm but for their customers too. Ambition, when placed in this context, could be seen as the desire to conquer industries or challenge existing powerhouses or to stay at the top of the food chain for incumbents. For instance, Apple was founded on the very desire to break into a market dominated by giants such as IBM. Steve Jobs had infected the company with his ambition of making Apple great by challenging IBM’s stranglehold on the personal computer industry. This manifested in Apple coming up with the Apple 1 as a direct competitor to IBM’s computers at the time at a reasonable price point to attract customers away from IBM. In this instance, the ambition was a force for good for the organisation as its hunger to break into the market gave it the ability to innovate and come up with products that customers want, giving it a foothold in the industry. Even now, that same ambition lingers in the company which helps it to post-high levels of profits and make it one of the world’s most valuable companies. The benefits of ambition by the organisation is not just confined to within the company but also ripples down to the consumers too. People are given a greater variety of products to choose from, all at a lower price due to competition hence are much more satisfied. Hence this shows that the ambition of organisations is good as it benefits both the organisation and the masses.
Ambition is also good as it is a vital ingredient for governments to succeed. This ambition takes shape in the form of the state wanting to better the wellbeing of her people and brings about economic prosperity. A great example would be that of Singapore and her founding father Lee Kuan Yew. It is hard to imagine nowadays that Singapore was a developing country a mere fifty years ago without the skyscrapers and the multinational companies on her shores. This would not have been possible had it not been for the ambition of the late Mr Lee and his government to transform the country. Conventional governments would have pandered to national pride to grow their support in anticipation of their next election, but Mr Lee’s government’s focus was to ride the wave of meritocracy to bring about economic prosperity to the country. We could have kept our resentment towards the Japanese close to our hearts, or continued sobbing over Malaysia’s decision to kick us out of Malaysia, but it was because of our ambition and our desire to survive that we did not let our emotions get the better of us and instead stayed objective. The government warmed relations with Japan which allowed for huge capital inflows into the country to build the nation. We showed no hostility towards Malaysia and in return, they sold us potable water for survival. This is all due to the ambition of the government to survive and succeed and now we reap the rewards centuries later while our government continues to have that same level of ambition to help us stay relevant in the world today. Hence ambition is good for governments as it helps them to stay objective and bring out prosperity to her people.
However, to merely say ambition is always good would be myopic as with all issues, there are two sides to the story and ambition is no exception. While ambition is a driver for a cause, it will inevitably result in sacrifices being made in other areas to achieve that cause. Going back to the example of Singapore, ambition drove the country to economic prosperity but it also led to the stifling of the local political scene. In order to push forth the government’s agenda and better the country, Singapore has effective been a one-party state since her inception. Resentment or opposition had been dealt with an iron fist by the founding fathers in the form of libel lawsuits or control of the freedom of speech. This was due to the ambition of creating economic prosperity and its trade-off for a small country like Singapore was the vibrancy of the local political scene. Investors desire stability and we duly delivered by covering our mouths with tape in exchange for money and shut the mouths of others who try to speak out and potentially jeopardise the inflow of capital. In this case, ambition has been a bane as it destroyed the opposition in our country and prevented the checks and balances of power. We were lucky in that the People’s Action Party ran a corruption-free government and did not seek to exploit the lack of an opposition to exercise their powers uncontrollably to enrich themselves. In the international scene, however, our model has legitimised the use of a one-party state to run a country due to our success as seen by Russian President Putin’s praise of Singapore and his alleged ambition to emulate our success. This will not bode well for Russians in general as his government is a kleptocracy and his ‘ambition’ is only used as a pretext to legitimise his abuse of power – something we may have contributed to due to our success with the system. Hence ambition, in this case, is not good as it entails trade-offs vital to keep a check of power while inadvertently may provide as a convenient excuse for others to achieve their ulterior motives.
Furthermore, individual and organisational ambition could be of detriment to society if the ambition is of malice. Ambition is a double-edged sword and it is wielder who ultimately decides whether is it used for good. The past has seen many who used ambition to leverage on their desire for excellence but history shows us that ambition has also been a tool for destruction. Memories of World War 2 still linger in the minds of the survivors while the sins committed by Hitler continues to haunt Germany even today. Hitler, in his time, was ambitious and wanted to save Germany from her economic freefall and her loss of pride. However, unlike the relatively more pacified approach Mr Lee employed with Singapore, Hitler chose to do the opposite and pursued that path of a warmonger to ‘cleanse Europe.’ From waging unnecessary wars to wanting to play the role of God via creating the pure Aryan, his ambition lied in all the wrong reasons. His ambition was clouded with hate and the people too – disillusioned by the shame the Allies brought to them – were galvanised by his ambition and inflicted suffering on the Jews to alleviate their own pain which led to the Kristallnacht before the floodgates opened. His ambition to cause harm on others took his actions even further such as building concentration camps to inflict maximum suffering on the Jews, stripping them of their dignity as humans and their right to live. This goes to show that ambition can be employed wrongly as well and compared to good ambition being the spark to eventual success, this form of ambition spreads like wildfire which will inevitably burn down all before it, leaving nothing behind. It brings civilisations down the path of self-destruction and is the premonition of death for many others unrelated to that society. Hence ambition in its ugliest form is the grim reaper for innocent lives and it being bad is a severe understatement.
In conclusion, ambition is neither wholly good or bad. It is just a means to an end and if used correctly, it creates wonders but if used wrongly, it destroys. To say that it is always good is to be delusional while claiming it is always bad is perhaps being too pessimistic. I am for one who believes in ambition being mostly good but is not oblivious to the nastier side of what it may bring about too. Hence while I find that ambition is largely good, it can be folly in other instances.
