Small people spend much time discussing the "pride" of great people's successes. Small people define the necessary "ego to achieve" as pride, and they call "accomplishments of the energy of ego," as of flesh.
Ego and conceit are different, one divine, the other self-ego or haughtiness perhaps. Without ego a man is no man. Call it spirit, call it "get up and go," call it "spunk," call it what we will. Male ego is God's created nature of maleness and without ego a man is not in God's eyes.