Attitude and ego is ‘everything’

You may be brilliant and a great performer but if you do not manage two ‘animals’, attitude and ego, your career will not fly – it won’t even take off. Attitude and ego can make or break or your career. In everything that you do at work, be sure that you tame your ego and that you have a great positive attitude.
Case in point. There was a person, among the many that I have mentored in the last decade or so who was technically best qualified for his job. He told me that he worked hard and was consistent and many other positive things. I was mentoring him to get a promotion which he had never had for nearly seven years. I did everything that a mentor could do to help this person for over two years and promotions never came by.
This was a first time I experienced such a lack of response in spite of all the planning and effort. This led me to meeting his supervisor, whom I knew very well. I asked the boss why this particular person never got promotion and that as a mentor I had done everything possible to help in the background. The supervisor was very clear to me: “You may have fixed everything but the real problem we have with that person is attitude. If he can change the attitude, then his future is bright and not just one but many promotions will follow. Your mentee leaves office at exactly 5 pm and switches off the phone. No one can talk to him after hours or at weekend.”
I am sure that there are many out there in a similar situation. They never get promoted. They work hard and they have mastered their work. They wonder why not getting the promotion. There could be other reasons, but attitude is among the top likely ones. Do you have the right attitude to be considered favourably by your boss and the human resources team?
Having the right attitude basically means being positive minded, energetic and having a go-getter attitude. Right attitude means you see things positively more than negatively. You have little time for negativity and you want to get things done without too many complaints, pomp or arrogance.
Right attitude means having the right balance of everything while remaining positively minded. When your boss loads you with a lot of work, you do not complain but you raise your game and still deliver to the best of your ability.
When you are disappointed or frustrated, you still come to office early and leave office late. You still work hard and deliver a lot of output despite the disappointment. Above all, you do not show people around you that you are disappointed. This means that you have the right attitude indeed and this cannot go unnoticed. Someone out there sees that and appreciates and one day, you will be abundantly rewarded for this kind of positive attitude.
Ego goes hand in hand with attitude. Ego is part of a person’s identify. It gives a person a sense of his or her ‘self-importance’. When we say that someone has ‘a BIG ego’, we basically mean that the person considers himself or herself to be of much greater importance than anyone else around him or her. And that is where the problem begins with ego. Never allow yourself to have a big ego. When you have a big ego, you will immediately have a wrong attitude. You will feel that you are too big to be treated like others. You will expect and even demand special treatment.
This way, with big ego, you will fail to deliver optimally. You will not stand out in terms of delivery and definitely not in terms of team player attributes. Therefore, for you to have the right attitude, you do necessarily need to tame your ego.
No matter how great you perform and no matter how skilled you become, you will not excel in career if you do not have the right attitude and if you do not manage or tame your ego. Good luck as you manage these two important attributes so that you can rise and shine!