The Introvert Leader

Ambition vs Integrity

• Austin Hopkins

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Too many people chase success at the cost of who they are. But what if you didn’t have to choose between doing well and doing what’s right? In this episode, I share a story from my early leadership career, and the moment I realized that how you win matters more than just winning. We’ll talk about the hidden costs of unchecked ambition, why integrity matters more than ever, and how to build a career you’re actually proud of.



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Too many people think ambition is more important than integrity. They think that all that matters is more money and more power, a bigger title and a bigger bank account. These traditional success measurements aren't shit in my opinion. Yeah, money's cool. A director title is fun, but they mean literally nothing if you lose your soul on the path to getting it. I've seen too many people leaning too far towards ambition and forgetting about their integrity. So today I want to spend five to ten minutes talking about how to balance your ambition with your integrity in your career. Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast. So to kick things off, I want to tell you a quick story. I remember a moment early in my leadership career that really shaped how I think about ambition and the role of integrity. So I was a branch manager at the time, and our district leadership had one solution for everything: micromanagement. They didn't call it that, but that's what it was. They wanted me to check in after every client conversation. They wanted me to send recap emails several times a day, jump on calls if we were even slightly behind, and constantly report on everything my team was doing. And I watched lots of other branch managers do it. And sure, sometimes they hit their number faster than we did. In fact, a lot of times they did, but their teams hated it. People burnt out, turnover was insane. No one was staying, no one was growing, no one was proud of their work. It was just survival mode. And I remember thinking, if this is what ambition looks like, I don't want it. This isn't for me. And so I tried something a little different. Yeah, I checked in with my bankers, but I didn't beat them up. And after most interactions, I just simply asked a couple of questions like, how do you think that went? Did you miss anything? What can we do better on the next time? Is there anything you need from me? There wasn't any fear, there wasn't any shame, there wasn't any barking or yelling orders. And when our senior leadership applied pressure, guess what? I absorbed it. I took the hits, I didn't pass the stress on to my team. I protected them from the noise because I remembered what it felt like to be in their shoes. I remember being the banker and feeling like there was all these eyes looking at me to hit my numbers and that if I didn't, it was going to be a big problem. And yeah, we grew a little slower at first. We were not the top branch all the time. And I'm not going to pretend that we skyrocketed to the top overnight. But guess what? My team actually liked working for me. My turnover was basically zero. People got promoted. I built top performers through coaching, not controlling. And over the years, almost 20 people followed me to different companies across the US, not because I was the easiest manager, but because I didn't make them choose between results and being a human. And the funny thing, we still hit our numbers. And that was the moment I realized you don't have to sacrifice integrity to be ambitious. You just have to play a different game. And so that's really the big idea here today is I think a lot of people believe that ambition is the opposite of integrity. And I don't necessarily believe that. I think you can be incredibly ambitious, but never once sacrifice your integrity. So the corporate world, though, I'm going to be honest with you, it's set up to incentivize ambition, right? We compete for everything. We compete for promotions. We get performance reviews, and we're judged for not winning at all costs. Now, here's the truth. Most thought leaders will tell you that you need to work more hours, you need to destroy your competition, and you need to cut corners in the pursuit of power and financial gain. And I'd like to suggest the exact opposite. What if you could be incredibly ambitious without ever losing your morality? What if you could rise through the corporate world without becoming an asshole? What if you could become a leader whose team actually likes working for them? And my whole career has really been built on this one idea. I wanted to see if I could balance my ambition with my integrity and still be wildly successful. And I'm happy to say I did it, right? I was able to become a director before the age of 30. I was making over six figures before I turned 25, been able to build a really successful marriage and good friendships. Now, no life is perfect, but I was able to achieve all those things while never sacrificing my integrity, yet continuously having really ambitious big goals. And what I thought I'd do is just share like a couple of kind of almost reverse insights, things that you wouldn't necessarily believe are true, but they are. So here they are, real quick. Number one, helping people is the fastest way to get ahead. Now you may disagree. In my experience, you attract better talent, you get more value from the people, they bring their best, and people will follow you. Like I said, I had close to 20 different people follow me to new teams and new companies. And I had asked these folks to take a chance and follow me to the unknown, to companies I hadn't worked at. And they all said yes because I had spent my time and energy helping them. The more I invested in my network, the more dividends I got. The more I could rely on my network if something wasn't going well. Now, people can work pretty hard and actually get some decent results in a culture of pressure, but it never lasts. But the teams that are a part of a service culture, a part of a culture where the leader and the other teammates are thinking of others before themselves a lot of times, that's where long-term success happens. And not just the success where you're hitting your numbers, but like the kind of success that when your team goes home at the end of the night, they don't hate their jobs. They don't hate their life. They don't have to go drink themselves to sleep because they're so numb and depressed from their workday. They can go home and enjoy their families. They can get healthier. They can be better, well-rounded humans outside of work. And that was really my big thing is I wanted these people to not only do well at work, but to have the other parts of their life actually be something that they enjoyed. I think the second one is big failures don't ruin careers, but the small compromises do. So most people think that the big mistakes, the major setbacks, those are the things that destroy a career. Those suck, don't get me wrong, but the biggest thing I see ruin careers is those small compromises. It's when people cut corners to get what they want, when they treat someone the wrong way. I remember when I was managing a new small remote sales team. In the beginning, we had to self-report our outbound results to the leadership team every night. And I remember having a particularly slow month one summer. The team was just kind of picking up speed. And I gotta be honest, they were sucking bad. One week was super bad, and my team didn't even put up any results. And I remember thinking, Austin, why don't you just inflate the numbers a little bit? Make it up. You know, fudge the numbers. No one's checking these things. They're self-reported. And honestly, it doesn't even hurt anyone. But then I thought, wait, Austin, why are you cutting this corner? Is it to look good? Is it because you're worried about getting fired? Like, why are you doing this? Okay, so what? You had a bad week. That's okay. No need to start panicking. Just put down the real results you did and be honest and take your licks. And so I did. I put down my real numbers. And guess what? No one said anything. But had I fudged the numbers, it would have been so easy to make another small compromise and another and another. And then over time, if you make enough small compromises, guess what? You've changed. And now you're no longer the person you thought you were before. The last one is I think success is meaningless if you hate who you become getting it. So what does a 250K salary mean if you have to steal credit for your coworkers' idea? What does a VP title mean if your team can't stand you? You know, I've known a few very successful executives who lack integrity. When I look at their lives, their relationships, everything around them, I see sadness. And I know that can't feel good. From the outside, they do have it all. They have the dope house, they have the awesome job, they have the big pay, they have the cool clothes. But you look them in the eyes and they look tired. They look empty, they look sad, like their life is in some big imbalance, like one thing is going too hard the one direction. And I think every time we make a decision to do something selfish or take advantage of someone, we chip away at the image of ourself. And so enough small decisions, and you're gonna look in the mirror, like I said, and you're gonna hate that person. And so, you know, let's say you're 50 years old and you've got the amazing title and all of those cool accolades at work, but what if you don't like yourself? Is that salary worth it? Is that gonna sustain you at night when you're in your bed and you're questioning why you made the choices you did? I I don't know. I don't want to get myself in that position where I have to answer a question like that. And so I think for me, I'm always trying to think is the success that I'm getting or chasing right now changing me from who I am, from who my parents raised me to be, the core values that I've talked about on the podcast, the things that I stand for. Am I sacrificing those things to get success? And I guess what I would leave you with is the answer is you don't have to do that. You can be incredibly successful from a financial standpoint, from a relationship standpoint, from a career standpoint, and never sacrificing your integrity. In fact, people will respect you so much more for it if you never have to sacrifice your integrity. If I look at two people, one person has all the cool accolades and all the cool materialistic things from the outside, but they're a piece of shit. I don't really think that's that cool. Now, if another person has all of the same stuff and yet they treat people the right way, they go out of their way to help others, oh my gosh, I want to be that person. That's my hero. That's the person I want to, I want to chase and try to become, you know? So to wrap up, what I thought could be interesting is give you a quick challenge. I want you to just ask yourself this question over the week. What are you willing to give up to get what you want? Are you willing to sacrifice your soul? Are you willing to sacrifice your integrity? Are you willing to hurt others, take advantage of others, be selfish, make poor decisions in order to get a financial number in your bank account or to get a cool title? And if the answer is yes, I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to ask yourself why. Why are you willing to give those things up? Do you not think they're important? Do you not think they'll serve you well later in your life? And if you're not willing to give those things up and you know integrity is important, kudos to you. I'm impressed. Keep it up. And I want to say thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Make it a great day. This has been the Introvert Leader Podcast. Subscribe for new episodes every other Wednesday.

Contributor

Austin Hopkins

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