Ambition and Power

I recently attended a two hour program entitled Women and Power: Getting Ambitious about Ambition. The reason for my attendance was to complete the remaining hour I was deficient for 2010 in satisfying my 12 yearly continuing legal education requirements to continue being a lawyer in the state of Georgia. I wasn't really jazzed about the program. I hadn’t really given the topic a thought recently. Which perhaps is the problem.



I came out of the program really inspired and ready to take on the world realizing I’ve been somewhat complacent in my career the past year or so. Let me back up.


If you had asked me before the program if I would label myself as ambitious, I would have answered “absolutely” without giving it a second thought. I mean I competitively swam growing up, I did well in high school, had better grades in college and then went on to law school. Of course I am ambitious. Or at least I was ambitious. I was raised to believe I could do anything I set out to do and in my house it was always somewhat assumed that I would be an educated woman and go on to graduate school after college as my father had done. You must be ambitious to follow this course. So yes, I was ambitious. But now that I am a lawyer and have achieved that goal of becoming one, I haven’t really given a second thought to what my new ambitions are for my career path.


In my personal life I am certainly ambitious. I have goals and have set out to achieve them. I want to be the best mother I can be. Not the perfect mother, but my own best version of the perfect mother. I want to be a good wife and take steps to do so. I want to have a nice, clean home and try to keep that up. I want to maintain strong, meaningful relationships with my girlfriends and family and continually work at those relationships. I am ambitious in these endeavors.


But am I ambitious in my job? After attending this program, I have a new desire to be ambitious in my job. Which is perhaps coming at the perfect time – i.e. just returning to work from maternity leave and having feelings of guilt for being a working mother. I now believe I need to really sit down and think about what I want from my career. Is my goal to make partner? Well, yes, but then what? Where do I want my legal career to go. I need to give this some thought.


The one thing that became clear from this program is the difference between men and women in the work place and their different approaches to getting ahead. Women tend to shy away from confrontation and think that they don’t have to fight for themselves. If you do a good job, you expect to get noticed. But it became apparent from this room full of female lawyers that this isn’t necessarily the case. I learned (or was reminded, because I’ve heard most of this before but tend to forget it quickly) that you have to speak up and advocate for yourself. If you want something, ASK. Have an action plan for where you are going and execute it.  The old boys club mentality is still out there in many ways and women can't just sit back and expect to get ahead.  You have to be proactive. 

You go girl.