Ambition: The Most Uncomfortable Virtue in Business School

Ambition used to build empires. Now it just makes people roll their eyes.

Ambition doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere. In the U.S., it’s practically patriotic. In Japan, it’s socially suspect. In Northern Europe, ambition gets politely neutralized - be competent, not exceptional. Even in France, where I teach, ambition is often confused with arrogance, especially in the business school classroom.

When a student dares to question, challenge, or push further, classmates roll their eyes, and faculty members tighten their smiles. It’s not hostility—it’s discomfort. I think we’ve built educational systems that reward obedience, not aspiration.

Sociologists call it normative conformity pressure: the instinct to blend in, not stand out. It keeps peace, but kills progress. Schools claim to “develop leaders,” but mostly they produce survivors—trained to meet requirements, not exceed them. Grades are the finish line, not the launch pad.

That’s why I decided to make ambition the core of my teaching. I try to remove boundaries by rewriting the rules. I tell my students there’s no such thing as “off limits.” I make them use AI - not to cheat, but to stretch what’s possible. I assign multiple deliverables, with every round a chance to improve the mean removing the fear. And I let them fall, hard, then hand them benchmark examples so they can rebuild and reach for the stars.

We sketch strategy frameworks on paper because I want them to think with their hands, not their slides. We bring in random outsiders—distillers, startup founders, local officials—to tear apart their ideas. We’ve built visitor journeys through airports, redesigned patient flows in hospitals, even argued ethics while half the class was still finishing their croissants. I tell them, forget the grade—it’s not the prize. What matters is that moment when they realize they can think faster, go deeper, and stand taller than they thought possible. That’s what I really want, is for them to switch their mindset from “I hope I can do this” to “I’m going to make this happen”.

If schools really wanted ambitious people, they’d stop admitting only the polished ones - the GMAT grinders, LinkedIn curators, professional hoop-jumpers. They’d start hunting for grit: the kid who built something, broke it, rebuilt it. They would also stop grading for obedience and start rewarding intelligent rebellion. And they’d cut the faculty who mistake rigor for rigidity. Replace case studies with field tests. Build admissions around curiosity, not compliance. Most of all, they’d scrap the fake “leadership workshops” and put students in rooms with real founders, activists, engineers, creatives—anyone who bleeds for what they build. That’s where ambition gets contagious again.

Because ambition is learned like anything else: through freedom, risk, and the belief that someone actually expects you to soar.

And if ambition feels dangerous, maybe that’s the point.