By Oluwole Dada
Some years ago, I had a conversation with one of my mentors who is a senior executive in the oil and gas industry. He said, “I have progressed this far much more because of my attitude than my ability.” This is a man who has navigated boardrooms, survived industry downturns, and outlasted colleagues who were arguably more brilliant than him.
Here is a man who could easily lead with his credentials. Decades of technical expertise. An address book that reads like a who’s who of the energy sector. And yet, when he distills the secret of his career success, he does not reach for his degrees or his technical competencies. He reaches for something far more human: Attitude
He said something afterwards which I think every ambitious professional needs to hear. He told me that many people he has watched fall in corporate settings, and he said he has seen quite a few, did not stumble because they lacked skill.
They stumbled because pride walked in through the back door. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes with a full marching band. But pride walked in, and when it did, it poisoned everything it touched.
Think about the engineer who knows the system better than anyone in the room and begins to treat meetings as an opportunity to remind everyone of that fact. Think about the finance analyst whose numbers are always right and who has therefore concluded that people who question her methodology are simply wasting her time. It is all traceable to that word: Pride.
Satya Nadella’s transformation of Microsoft is one of the most instructive corporate stories of the last decade. He inherited a company that had become insular, defensive, and frankly arrogant in its culture. Engineers competed against each other rather than collaborating. The attitude of the organization was calcified.
Nadella did not come in with a revolutionary technology strategy on day one, but with a deliberate, almost aggressive shift in cultural attitude. A shift from “know-it-all” to “learn-it-all.”
That single attitudinal recalibration unlocked billions of dollars in market value and repositioned Microsoft as one of the most relevant technology companies in the world.
The product did not change overnight. The attitude did.
There’s a dangerous myth in many organizations which is, being brilliant technically earns you a license to behave badly. That myth costs careers.
A manager’s technical ability may earn him promotion to a point, but his attitude determines whether he stays, leads and scales. Technical excellence without interpersonal skill creates single‑point failures and toxic teams.
Attitude is scalable. A line manager’s openness influences a whole lot in the system. A department head who consistently asks for feedback creates a safer space for junior staff to raise risks early, saving time and reputational cost for the company.
Treat your attitude like a strategic asset. Protect it from pride and let respect be the currency you trade in every day.
Psychologist Carol Dweck spent years studying what separates people who succeed long term from those who plateau or implode. Her findings should interest every personnel who has anchored their professional identity exclusively to their technical brilliance.
Attitude, she discovered, is a better predictor of success than IQ. The person with a fixed mindset, the one who believes talent is static, who receives feedback as a personal attack, who cannot yield to a superior argument because yielding feels like defeat eventually caps out.
They may climb. They often do climb, because ability is real and it does open doors. But they stop climbing at the precise moment when relationships, adaptability, and emotional intelligence become the primary currency.
Lynda Moultry Belcher identifies certain attitudes that translate directly into professional longevity, and they are worth mentioning. The three are respect, enthusiasm and commitment. As it relates to respect, treat everyone, regardless of their level on the organizational chart, with basic human dignity.
Be polite and professional even when you disagree. For enthusiasm, let those around you feel your energy. Genuine enthusiasm is a form of leadership even when you carry no official title. Commitment is the last of the three and it is about solving issues in a way that makes your colleague’s life easier. That orientation is what separates the person who merely occupies a role from the person who elevates it.
Your attitude goes a long way to determine how far you go in life. Having a fixed mindset and an inability to yield to superior argument can spell doom for you in your career. It is the silent career killer. You may succeed in climbing the ladder of success to a particular level, but you need a good attitude for sustainability.
Talent gets you in the door but character keeps you in the room. Your staying power in any role or capacity is a function of your attitude. There is no ceiling where a great attitude can’t take you. It is the bridge between potential and legacy.
Oluwole Dada is the General Manager at SecureID Limited, Africa’s largest smart card manufacturing plant in Lagos, Nigeria.
