Over years, I have seen my friends, class-mates and colleagues achieve many success & failures in their professional life. There have been many cases of people achieving professional successes that were not expected of them and the expected high-achievers failing pretty miserably. The common pattern that I have seen in most of the successes is that the person had the ability to "get stuff done". It is a very loose phrase, but, it encompasses what we typically try to explain as various qualities like "self-starter", "motivated", "takes up challenge", "tenacity", etc.
In many challenging times, we know exactly what needs to be done to overcome the challenge. We also mostly know what we can possibly achieve and where we would require help from others, but, somehow we fail to over-come the challenge. Reasons could be internal (sheer laziness, feeling over-whelmed, etc) or external (uncooperative environment, poor quality resources to help, etc). However, the successful person typically sticks to the plan, reaches out to the right people & seeks help where needed, puts in the hard work and somehow miraculously always completes it. This ability to commit oneself to a planned approach and methodically working on over-coming obstacles inevitably leads to success. Steve Jobs once explained this as the difference between a janitor and a VP. A janitor gives reasons & excuses as to why something cannot be done. A VP does not have that privilege - he is expected to get stuff done.
Some have the ability to "get stuff done" in a soft way by convincing and cajoling. Such people are typically remembered as a saintly/grandfatherly person - ex. Ratan Tata, Warren Buffet, etc. Others do it by pushing and steam-rolling people, and are remembered as arrogant but high-achievers - ex. Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, etc.
I believe that as we progress in our career, it is this ability to "get stuff done" that distinguishes the high-flying eagles from the low-flying crows.
