ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the need to be driven toward excellence, and the importance of nurturing creativity, design thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit as elements of ambitious performance and ongoing progress. It examines ambition from a gender perspective, and reviews this trait from an individual as well as a group perspective. The chapter also presents a brief narrative of opinions from 31 executives who were interviewed about their perspectives on ambition. When differences in gender are considered in light of ambition, it turns out that men have been more prone so far to take on ambitious tasks than women. Ambition is a valuable quality in climbing the career ladder or staying on top once one reaches the height they are aiming for. Ambition can be a great instigator of critical thinking, because people who are ambitious are always on the look out for ways to progress.
