Dear Fellow Business Leader,

Your organisation is teaching people how to treat people. Your organisation has a service attitude even if you have never formally defined one. People experience it every day. They experience it when they call your office. When they make a complaint. When your employee makes a mistake. When a customer asks an inconvenient question. When a member of staff needs your attention. When you have received their money but have not yet delivered what you promised.

And here is something worth considering:

Your employees cannot consistently give customers an attitude that your organisation does not give its employees. If people are treated as disposable internally, don’t be surprised when the culture eventually becomes transactional externally. If management doesn’t keep its word, employees learn that commitments are negotiable. If leaders tolerate lateness, dishonesty, negligence or rudeness because “he is a good performer,” the organisation has quietly taught everyone what it is prepared to excuse.

This is why service attitude is not simply a frontline employee issue. It is a leadership issue.

Nigeria’s 2024 Customer Service Index recorded an overall customer satisfaction score of 67%, an improvement from 61% in 2023. Yet public services scored 63%, and the figures across sectors remind us that better service is still unfinished work.

But business leaders, I want to take the conversation beyond customer satisfaction. Ask yourself: What does it feel like to work in my organisation? Do people receive respect? Are promises honoured? Are complaints taken seriously? Are standards applied fairly? Does the organisation make it easier for good people to do good work?

Because eventually, organisational culture becomes customer experience. You cannot build a service-minded organisation merely by putting “Customers First” on the wall. You build it by creating a culture where responsibility is expected, excellence is supported, integrity is rewarded and people matter. Your business is not only selling a product or service. Every day, it is also teaching people what your organisation believes about people.

Now, let us extend this conversation beyond business organisations to public service.

Someone Entrusted You With More Than a Job.

Dear Public Servant, I know that phrase, public servant, can sound like a title on an appointment letter.

But it is actually a profound responsibility.

Someone gave you access to a public office, public resources, public information, public infrastructure or public authority. Those things don’t belong to you. They have been entrusted to you. And that changes the meaning of your work.

A citizen who walks into a government office is not doing you a favour by asking for a service. The citizen is approaching an institution that exists, in part, to serve the public. That citizen may be frustrated. The process may genuinely be difficult. Your workload may be heavy. Your salary may not reflect your expectations. Your own organisation may have failed you. All of that can be true.

But the person standing before you did not necessarily create those problems. This is where character becomes important. How do you treat the person who has no influence? How do you respond when nobody important is watching? Do you make a citizen return unnecessarily because you can? Do you demand what the process does not require? Do you delay what should be done today? Or do you ask yourself:

“How can I make this person’s experience better within the limits of my responsibility?”

Public service is one of the places where service attitude has enormous consequences because poor service does not merely inconvenience an individual. It can weaken confidence in institutions. It can increase the temptation to seek shortcuts. It can encourage people to believe that rules are only for those without connections. And when that happens repeatedly, society pays the price.

So, dear public servant, please don’t underestimate the power of your daily interaction. You may think you are processing a document. Someone else may experience it as dignity or humiliation. You may think you are simply doing your job.

Someone else may experience it as government working or government failing. Your position gives you authority. But remember: Authority is not ownership. It is stewardship.

And perhaps that is the question worth carrying to work tomorrow: “What should excellent public service look like if I remember that the public is the reason my office exists?”

Enjoy the rest of your week.

In all you do, Mind Your Character.

I’m Bosede Olusola-Obasa, Character Development Trainer, Corporate Culture Strategist and Best Service Attitude Advisor.