Attitude is an important component that goes as input in the development of human being. How to build a…

Question

Attitude is an important component that goes as input in the development of human being. How to build a suitable attitude needed for a public servant?

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

A suitable public-service attitude is built by shaping its cognitive, affective and behavioural parts through constitutional education, field exposure, role models, practised habits and lifelong reinforcement. Mission Karmayogi (2020) sustains it through role-based training on ethics and citizen-centricity.

**Introduction**

Attitude is a learned tendency to evaluate people and situations, with cognitive, affective and behavioural parts. Because it is learned, a public servant's attitude of service, neutrality, empathy and integrity can be built deliberately.

**Shaping What a Public Servant Thinks and Feels**

SKETCH: tree | Building a Public Service Attitude
- Cognitive
  - Constitutional values
- Affective
  - Empathy via exposure
- Behavioural
  - Habits and incentives

1. **Early socialisation**: Kalam held that a corruption-free nation needs the father, the mother and the teacher, since family and school lay the base.
2. **Constitutional conviction**: Study of the Preamble and Fundamental Rights, and the ethics paper's case studies, build the belief that officers serve citizens, not rulers.
3. **Empathy through exposure**: LBSNAA village visits, and IAS officer Pulkit Garg enrolling his daughter in a Chitrakoot anganwadi, show how lived contact builds empathy and public trust.
4. **Role models**: Armstrong Pame's crowdfunded People's Road in Manipur (2012) teaches a can-do attitude better than sermons.

**Reinforcing the Attitude Through Behaviour**

1. **Practice before conviction**: Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory suggests that habits shape attitudes, so citizen charters, Sevottam standards and CPGRAMS timelines build service habits.
2. **Lifelong learning**: Mission Karmayogi (2020) and its iGOT Karmayogi platform keep attitudes current through role-based modules on ethics and citizen-centricity.
3. **Codes, incentives and feedback**: The All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968 set limits, the PM's Awards for Excellence reward responsiveness, and 360-degree feedback helps officers correct arrogance and bias.

**Conclusion**

Knowledge convinces the mind, exposure moves the heart, and practice with incentives fixes the habit. An officer formed this way lives Gandhi's talisman of recalling the poorest face, making attitude the input that yields good governance.

Attitude is an important component that goes as input in the development of human being. How to build a suitable attitude needed for a public servant?

Model answer

Practise this question

Attitude — Content, structure, function4 questions

Ghissu