Leadership & Human Behavior

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As a leader, you need to interact with your followers, peers, seniors, and others; whose support you need in order to accomplish your goals. To gain their support, you must be able to understand and motivate them. To understand and motivate people, you must know human nature. Human nature is the common qualities of all human beings. People behave according to certain principles of human nature.

Human needs are an important part of human nature. Values, beliefs, and customs differ from country to country and even within group to group, but in general, all people have a few basic needs. As a leader you must understand these needs because they can be powerful motivators.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Unlike others researchers in the earlier days of psychology, Abraham Maslow's based his theory of human needs on creative people who used all their talents, potential, and capabilities (Bootzin, Loftus, Zajonc, Hall, 1983). His methodology differed from most other psychological researchers at the time in that these researchers mainly observed mentally unhealthy people.

Maslow (1970) felt that human needs were arranged in a hierarchical order that could be divided into two major groups: basic needs and metaneeds (higher order needs):

    Basic Needs are physiological, such as food, water, and sleep; and psychological, such as affection, security, and self-esteem. These basic needs are also called “deficiency needs” because if they are not met by an individual, then that person will strive to make up the deficiency.
    Metaneeds or being needs (growth needs). These include justice, goodness, beauty, order, unity, etc. Basic needs normally take priority over these meta needs. For example, a person who lacks food or water will normally not attend to justice or beauty needs.

These needs are often listed in a hierarchical order in the form of a pyramid to show that the basic needs (bottom ones) must be met before the higher order needs (however, it should be pictured more as a box, see the section, Criticisms and Strengths, below for more information):

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

    5. Self-actualization — know exactly who you are, where you are going, and what you want to accomplish. A state of well-being.
    4. Esteem — feeling of moving up in world, recognition, few doubts about self.
    3. Belongingness and love — belong to a group, close friends to confide with.
    2. Safety — feel free from immediate danger.
    1. Physiological — food, water, shelter, sex.

Maslow posited that people want and are forever striving to meet various goals. Because the lower level needs are more immediate and urgent, then they come into play as the source and direction of a person's goal if they are not satisfied.

A need higher in the hierarchy will become a motive of behavior as long as the needs below it have been satisfied. Unsatisfied lower needs will dominate unsatisfied higher needs and must be satisfied before the person can climb up the hierarchy.

Knowing where a person is located on the pyramid will aid you in determining effective motivators. For example, motivating a middle-class person (who is in range 4 of the hierarchy) with a certificate will have a far greater impact than using the same motivator to affect a minimum wage person from the ghetto who is desperately struggling to meet the first couple of needs.

It should be noted that almost no one stays in one particular hierarchy for an extended period. We constantly strive to move up, while at the same time various forces outside our control try to push us down. Those on top get pushed down for short time periods, i.e., death of a loved-one or an idea that does not work, while those on the bottom get pushed up, i.e., come across a small prize. Our goal as leaders therefore is to help people obtain the skills and knowledge that will push them up the hierarchy on a more permanent basis. People who have their basic needs met become much better workers as they are able to concentrate on fulfilling the visions put forth to them, rather than consistently struggling to make ends meet.
Criticisms and Strengths

The above statements may be considered generalizations. Maslow's theory has often been criticized because we can find exceptions to it, such as the military, police, firefighters, etc. who will risk their safety for the well-being of others or parents who will sacrifice their basic needs for their children. However, there are very few theories that are not flawed in that once we start drilling down to individualistic levels, then the theory or generalization often starts to fall apart.  For example, even Newton's theory of physics, which later became laws, fell apart once we were able to drill down to the atomic level.

A recent study (Tay, Diener, 2011) discovered that as hypothesized by Maslow (1954), people tend to achieve basic and safety needs before other needs. However, fulfilling the various needs has relatively independent affects on a person's Subjective Well-Being. Thus rather than being a pyramid with the basic human needs arranged in a hierarchical order, it is more like a box with the basic human needs scattered within and depending on the situation and/or environment, different needs rise to the top to compensate for the deficient needs.

Maslow's theory remains a classic because rather than looking at psychology as strictly the study of the mentally ill, his theory was based upon healthy persons.  And being one of the first humanistic ones, it has its share of flaws.

Expansion of the Pyramid

In Maslow's (1971) later years, he become more interested in the higher order or metaneeds and tried to further distinguish them. Maslow theorized that the ultimate goal of life is self-actualization, which is almost never fully attained but rather is something we try to always strive for.

He later theorized that this level does not stop; it goes on to self-transcendence, which carries us to the spiritual level, e.g. Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, or even poets, such as Robert Frost. Maslow's self-transcendence level recognizes the human need for ethics, creativity, compassion and spirituality. Without this spiritual or transegoic sense, we are simply animals or machines.

This expansion of the higher order needs is shown here:

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs in his later years

Note that the four meta needs (above the inner pyramid) can be pursued in any order, depending upon a person's wants or circumstances, as long as the basic needs have all been met:

1.    8. Self-transcendence — a transegoic (see Note below) level that emphasizes visionary intuition, altruism, and unity consciousness.
2.    7. Self-actualization — know exactly who you are, where you are going, and what you want to accomplish. A state of well-being.
3.    6. Aesthetic — to do things not simply for the outcome but because it's the reason you are here on earth — at peace, more curious about the inner workings of all things.
4.    Cognitive — to be free of the good opinion of others — learning for learning alone, contribute knowledge.
5.    Esteem — feeling of moving up in world, recognition, few doubts about self.
6.    3. Belongingness and love — belong to a group, close friends to confide with.
7.    2. Safety — feel free from immediate danger.
8.    Physiological — food, water, shelter, sex.

Note: Transegoic means a higher, psychic, or spiritual state of development. The trans is related to transcendence, while the ego is based on Freud's work. We go from preEGOic levels to EGOic levels to transEGOic. The EGO in all three terms is used in the Jungian sense of consciousness as opposed to the unconscious. Ego equates with the personality.

In addition, just as in his earlier model, we may be in a state of flux — we shift between levels (Maslow, 1968). For example there may be peak experiences for temporary self-actualization and self-transcendence. These are our spiritual or creative moments.
Characteristics of Self-actualized People

People who have reached the state of self-actualization normally display the following characteristics:

    have better perceptions of reality and are comfortable with it
    accept themselves and their own natures.
    lack artificiality
    focus on problems outside themselves and are concerned with basic issues and eternal questions
    like privacy and tend to be detached
    rely on their own development and continued growth
    appreciate the basic pleasures of life (e.g. do not take blessings for granted)
    have a deep feeling of kinship with others
    are deeply democratic and are not really aware of differences
    have strong ethical and moral standards
    are original, inventive, less constricted and fresher than others

Going Beyond Maslow

While the research of Maslow's theory has undergone limited empirical scrutiny, it still remains quite popular due to its simplicity and being the start of the movement away from a totally behaviorist/reductionistic/mechanistic approach to a more humanistic one. In addition, a lot of concerns are directed at his methodology in that he picked a small number of people that he declared self-actualized and came to the conclusion about self-actualization. However, he understood this and thought of his work as simply a method of pointing the way, rather than being the final say. In addition, he hoped that others would take up the cause and complete what he had begun.

Other researchers have taken up his cause and furthered refined them, mostly in the area of organizations and work. Herzberg, Alderfer, and McGregor's research are all closely tied to Maslow's theory.
Herzberg's Hygiene and Motivational Factors

Frederick Herzberg was considered one of the most influential management consultants and professors of the modern postwar era. Herzberg was probably best known for his challenging thinking on work and motivation. He was considered both an icon and legend among visionaries such as Abraham Maslow, Peter Drucker, and Douglas McGregor.Climbing

Herzberg (1966) is best known for his list of factors that are based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, except his version is more closely related to the working environment:
HERZBERG'S HYGIENE & MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS
Hygiene or Dissatisfiers:

    Working conditions
    Policies and administrative practices
    Salary and Benefits
    Supervision
    Status
    Job security
    Co-workers
    Personal life

Motivators or Satisfiers:

    Recognition
    Achievement
    Advancement
    Growth
    Responsibility
    Job challenge

Herzberg's Hygiene and Motivational Factors

Hygiene or dissatisfiers factors must be present in the job before motivators can be used to stimulate a person. That is, you cannot use motivators until all the hygiene factors are met. Herzberg's needs are specifically job related and reflect some of the distinct things that people want from their work as opposed to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that reflect all the needs in a person's life.

Building on this model, Herzberg coined the term job enrichment — the process of redesigning work in order to build in motivators by increasing both the number of tasks that an employee performs and the control over those tasks. It is associated with the design of jobs and is an extension of job enlargement (an increase in the number of tasks that an employee performs).
McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor (1957) developed a philosophical view of humankind with his Theory X and Theory Y — two opposing perceptions about how people view human behavior at work and organizational life. McGregor felt that organizations and the managers within them followed either one or the other approach:
Theory X

    People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible.
    People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives.
    People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition.
    People seek security above all else.

In an organization with Theory X assumptions, management's role is to coerce and control employees.
Theory Y

    Work is as natural as play and rest.
    People will exercise self-direction if they are committed to the objectives (they are NOT lazy).
    Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.
    People learn to accept and seek responsibility.
    Creativity, ingenuity, and imagination are widely distributed among the population. People are capable of using these abilities to solve an organizational problem.
    People have potential.