Structure

• Introduction – define aptitude and attitude
• Body – differentiate between the two and explain the significance of the two
• Conclusion – take a balanced view point

Content

An aptitude is a component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, which can also be considered “talent”. Aptitudes may be physical or mental. Aptitude is not knowledge, understanding, learned or acquired abilities (skills) or attitude. The innate nature of aptitude is in contrast to achievement, which represents knowledge or ability that is gained.

Difference between Attitude and Aptitude

• While attitude is positive / negative / indifferent feeling towards a person, object, event or idea; aptitude is a competency to do certain kind of work. Both attitude and aptitude can be nurtured.
• While attitude is associated with character or virtues; aptitude is associated with competence.
• While attitude underpins the character, virtues and moral values; aptitude determines if the person would develop desired skills to do a task.
• While attitude is only mental; aptitude is both mental and physical.
• Aptitude is the “ability to learn” & Attitude is the “desire to learn”.

• Differences between attitude and aptitude:

From infancy to the very later stages of life these two inherited or acquired qualities go a long way in determining the gains and losses in a persons life. For a person having aptitude but lacking attitude is no good. For example, a person having aptitude for music but lacking the desire to hone his/her skill will not make him a good musician no matter how greatly he might be gifted, for we do know that practice makes a man perfect and it requires an attitude of competetive learning to develop and polish one’s skills. 

Example:  A civil servant must have an aptitude to learn about the people he is going to serve and an attitude to take into his stride all the kinds of issues that come his way and work solutions out of them. For eg. An officer posted in a region of an unlearned language may have an aptitude to learn it but unless he has a desire to do so in order to engage with the local community, that aptitude is not going to help him in any way.

Conclusion:

Thus both aptitude and attitude are equally important. Human is a student throughout his life. He keeps on learning. For a civil servants this learning process becomes all the more important as decision making is an important part of his duties. Decision making requires that he continuously updates himself to make better decisions. Decision making is thus a process where he converts his aptitude into attitude. His attitude thus becomes important as without converting his knowledge to practical part it would be a total waste. But this conversion is not restricted to facts alone. As a civil servant deals with human his decision making has to incorporate emotive aspects. Thus his attitude which blends both factual aptitude and emotive aspects is needed for his job. Swami Vivekanand had said “ Knowledge without application is a total loss”

Hence both aptitude and attitude are necessary and should complement each other to become a successful civil servant.