How to update attribute on element via directive using angularjs

I have a pretty simple case in AngularJS where:

<select ng-repeat="el in elms" disabled="disabled" remove-disable> <option>make a selection</option> </select> 

Initially my select is empty and so I added the disable attr to avoid having people click on it.

When the ajax call is completed and the select renders the list of options I want to remove the disable attribute.

It looks straight forward, right? but all I have seen is approaches using $watch and not for exactly this case.

I'm approaching it from a jQuery point of view where an looking at the DOM after the ajax call, finding the element and removing the attr. like this:

$('select').removeAttr('disabled'); 

Unfortunately I don't want to do jQuery, I want to do it with a directive, since that is what is for. the angular folks say that all DOM manipulations should be done via directives so I will like to know just how.

  enrollmentModule.directive('removeDisable', function () { return { restrict: 'A', scope: { ngModel : '=' }, link: function (scope, element, attrs) { console.log('no people yet'); if (element[0].complete) { console.log('element finish rendering'); }; scope.$watch(attrs.ngModel, function () { console.log('agents arrived'); }); } }; });