I agree with the need like doing hard work diligently. However, I believe that rising to the top also needs luck. If you are not lucky then you can be in a rut. My wife is lucky that she got to an executive position that I failed to reach. This is not to brag but my wife believes in my skills which did not bear much fruit because I was not lucky enough.You need frequent promotion to rise to the top. You might have heard about how a simple employee managed to become Google CEO, right? You need to be deligent and hardworking.