Two thoughts have rolled around my mind while I thought about this:
"You start out your career in aviation with a full bag of luck, and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience, before you empty the bag of luck".
The other is the subject which comes up in discussion about our kids; what's the balance between "nurture and nature"?
I any life pursuit, there are people who are "naturals" at it, and those who struggle, and are eventually adequate. In the course of objective, and non-predjudiced evaluation, the naturals and the adequate will look virtually the same in their performance. Only a deeper examination of their skills may show the differences, and for many reasons, that deeper evaluation may never occurr.
So even the "adequate" may find themselves comfortable in their skills, not thinking to continue to grow their abilities. This can be made worse by company training which is so focused, that the pilot learns only what they are being taught, to the apparent exclusion of their basic training.
Stalls come to mind. I have occasion to stall all kinds of planes, as a part of required evaluation of modifications. Often I fly alone, but for aircraft types which are new to me, or for which I am not type rated or insured, I will be accompanied by a "qualified" pilot. My challenge is that they are usually a "line pilot" whose job and training is to simply not stall that aircraft. But that's what we're there to do! Even after a briefing, I will find that he's pushing on the controls, while I'm pulling. "Am I feeling the plane, or you?" "Oh that's the plane, not me" as I see the while of skin between his thumb and forefinger.
So that pilot's attitude is generally right: Do as trained, do not stall planes. But, sometimes planes are to be stalled, so attitude should include, fly the test safely and properly. His experience is that stalling planes is bad, so avoid and prevent. The problem is that his experience should be good enough to comfortably stall and recover, when it is planned and expected, but he does not have that confidence. The antithisis of this, is the occasional pilot, who happily lets me do what I'm there to do, and then says "can I try that for practice while we're up here?". My answer is always "yes".
As in so many things in life, it is a balance. All attitude is going to get you killed for sure, 'cause you just can't get it right for lack of experience. Fortunately, you can't get a lot of experience, without getting some attitude along the way - both good and bad. Hopefully, training and mentoring will teach which is the attitude to retain, and which to never repeat!
Now, are the trainers up to the task?
During a flight test of a suspectedly non-conforming 172, I was required to take an instructor (club rules). "Ok, here's what I'm going to do.... you're welcomed to the ride, I won't really need any help with this, but feel free to ask, if there is something you would like clarified, or something you want to see." After determining that the plane was quite worthy, and having put it through all of it's paces, it was occurring to me that my crisp shirt, epaulette wearing guardian was actually still catching up to where we were in the sky at any given point. So after a brief straight and level, I delared the plane just fine, and asked would he like to see anything before we go back?
A roll please, this plane will roll, won't it?
"Um, No! Yes, this plane will roll perfectly well, but I'm not going to roll it, particualrly with you in it!
The poor fellow looked totaly dejected. I realized at that moment that he was a highly inexperienced pilot, who thought he saw, for a brief moment, an opportunity he would otherwise never have, to experience a roll, and would not get that experience. Is attitude problem, was that of even opening the door for me to do that, lest I try it! Worse, I demonstrate one, then off he goes to do more on his own, with too much attitude, and 'way to little experience!
I later learned that amoung the 20 or so instructors at that school, he was not only one of the seniors, but the school's safety officer!
Attitiude!