While we’re losing valuable and talented women in the workplace, it’s not for lack of ambition. Yet crucially, women may express and accomplish this ambition in a different way. It’s this misunderstanding of female motivation that led disgraced former Saatchi & Saatchi chairman Kevin Roberts to make his ill-advised claim last year that women will not succeed because they possess only an “ intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy .” Actually, thinks Dawson, this ambition spurs women to succeed in a more fulfilling way: “Ambition is not just about a top job. Ambition is about a fullness to your life,” she says. “That need for happiness is so important. It will also make you better at your job.”