Staff Writer 
By Memory Nguwi
THERE is a popular hiring slogan that has outlived its usefulness: “Hire for attitude and train for skill.” It is repeated in leadership seminars, celebrated in motivational books, and quoted by managers who believe they have found a simple formula for building high-performing teams.
Yet when you examine this phrase through the lens of science, real workplace experience, and actual performance patterns, it collapses immediately.
It is a comforting slogan, not a hiring strategy. It is a message that sounds good, but it is not true in practice. In fact, it misleads managers and contributes to performance failures that organisations later struggle to correct.
If we look honestly at why people fail in their roles, the explanation is rarely attitude. Most employees come into organisations with a willingness to work, a desire to grow, and an interest in performing well.
The problem is rarely that someone refuses to cooperate or does not feel positive enough. People fail mainly because they lack the capacity to handle the complexity of the work. They fail because they lack the reasoning ability required to make sound decisions.
They fail because they lack the depth of usable job knowledge that separates competent performers from overwhelmed ones. And sometimes they fail because their personality traits do not support consistent, reliable, disciplined performance.
The slogan is built on the false idea that anyone can be trained into any role as long as they have the right attitude. But training does not work that way. Training only works when the person has the cognitive ability to absorb, understand, and use new knowledge.
People vary widely in their learning speed and their ability to deal with new information. Some individuals learn quickly, see patterns easily, and apply new knowledge with confidence. Others struggle to cope with complexity, even when they are enthusiastic and willing.
The science behind cognitive ability has been clear for decades. You cannot train someone to think faster. You cannot train someone to analyse at a higher level if they do not have the underlying mental capacity. This is not a matter of attitude. It is a matter of capability.
It is also incorrect to assume that all skills can be trained. Some skills require deep, accumulated knowledge that builds over years. Other roles demand strong reasoning ability, attention to detail, problem solving, or strategic judgement.
These are not skills you can develop by simply putting someone through a training workshop. They require innate capacity, long-term learning, and exposure to increasingly complex tasks. Training can refine what is already there. It cannot create what does not exist.
Personality is another overlooked factor. Many roles require personality traits that are stable and enduring. Conscientiousness, reliability, emotional stability, and resilience are not qualities you develop simply because someone has a good attitude.
These traits influence how consistently a person performs, how they respond to pressure, how they organise their work, and how they follow through on commitments.
You cannot train someone to be naturally disciplined or naturally reliable if that is not part of their underlying personality structure. By ignoring personality and focusing only on attitude, managers set themselves up for disappointment.
There is also a more subtle problem with the slogan. Managers often mistake charm and friendliness for attitude. A candidate who smiles, speaks confidently, and appears enthusiastic during an interview is often assumed to have the “right attitude.” But these qualities have little to do with performance.
Many high-performing individuals are quiet, reflective, introverted, or analytical. Their attitude does not always display itself in loud or expressive ways. When managers rely on superficial indicators of attitude, they end up hiring people who look good in interviews but cannot deliver on the job.
The focus on attitude also creates an unfair burden for employees who are placed in roles beyond their natural capacity. When someone lacks the ability to meet the demands of a role, even the best attitude will eventually collapse.
They become stressed. They lose confidence. They feel overwhelmed. Managers then mislabel this as an “attitude problem” when the real issue is that the person lacked the capacity or personality fit for the job from the beginning. This is how good people end up failing, not because they were unwilling, but because they were mismatched.
If managers truly want better hiring decisions and better organisational performance, they must step away from slogans and return to evidence. The strongest predictors of performance have been consistent for decades.
Cognitive ability is one of the best predictors of success in almost any role because it determines how quickly someone learns and how well they solve problems. Usable job knowledge built through experience and deliberate learning remains one of the most powerful drivers of performance.
Personality traits such as conscientiousness predict reliability, follow-through, and consistency over time. Integrity predicts trustworthiness. These are the foundations that drive real performance.
Attitude is not irrelevant, but it is not the foundation. When people have the capability, the personality, and the job knowledge required for a role, their attitude naturally improves because they feel competent and confident in the work they are doing. Capability shapes attitude far more than attitude shapes capability. This is why people who are good at what they do often display the strongest work attitudes. They enjoy their work because they can master it.
Hiring based on slogans is easy. Hiring based on evidence is harder, but it is the only approach that works. Organisations that hire based on capability, personality, cognitive ability, and job knowledge build stronger teams and deliver better results.
Those that hire for attitude and hope training will bridge the gap eventually find themselves spending time, money, and energy trying to fix problems that could have been avoided at the hiring stage.
If managers want to make better decisions, they must stop chasing slogans and start following science. Attitude follows good leadership. Performance follows capability. The sooner organisations accept this, the sooner they will build teams that can actually deliver.
Nguwi is the managing consultant at Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd. He can be contacted by email mnguwi@ipcconsultants.com
