The most vital skill for a software tester to have is ?

uTest: The most vital skill for a software tester to have is ?

Gerald Weinberg: Courage. 

As Kipling put it, 
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you."

That's what testers need. 

from Testing the limits with Gerald Weinberg 

Courage is very important. 

Courage to reopen that difficult-to-reproduce bug that the developer closed. 

Courage to escalate a bug to the development manager when the developer refuses to fix it.  

Courage of having open discussions about how testing and development can be improved. 

Courage of saying what things are not done well. 

Courage to stop the build deployment to production because there are more serious issues left. 

Courage to start learning new skills when your existing skills are old. 

Courage to leave a job that keeps you doing the same not-interesting, not-challenging work for years. 

Courage of becoming a consultant when you skills are mature so that you can test them out there. 

Courage.


If
  BY RUDYARD KIPLING

If you can keep your head when all about you 
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
  But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, 
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, 
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; 
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same; 
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
  And never breathe a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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Alex Siminiuc