Leadership Theories: Satisfying Basic Human Needs

A person needs three things to motivate them, someone to love, something to hope for, or something to do (Flight of the Phoenix, 2004). “Leadership is often achieved by meeting” these three “basic human needs” (ACU, 2012). By implementing leadership theories that meet at least one of these needs you will be able to create a team with a purpose.

Someone to Love:

Bass’ transformational leadership includes a component dealing with inspirational motivation and higher order values. Bass defined transformational leadership in terms of how the leader affects followers, who are intended to trust, admire and respect the transformational leader. This leadership style gives followers someone to admire. (Nelson & Quick, 2014)

One leadership theory, not

' It raises the bar by appealing to higher ideals and values of followers. Leaders who employ this process model the values themselves and use charismatic methods to attract people to the values and to the leader. Leaders using Burn’s transformational leadership associate with a higher moral position and gives followers something to hope for, a similar moral position. These acts make for a charismatic leader who pushes others to hope for something more. (Nelson & Quick,

This behavior gives the followers something to work towards and hope for. It gives followers a voice and an optimism they can become part of the decision making process.

Something to Do:

Vroom-Yetton-Jago’s normative decision model includes five forms of decision-making and helps leaders and followers determine how much input followers should have in the decision-making process. On a basic level, when leaders allow followers to patriciate in the decision-making process, they are giving them something to do. When employing this model a leader is ultimately giving their followers five possible things to do decide, consult individually, consult group, facilitate, and delegate.

Fiedler’s contingency theory “assumes leaders are either task oriented or relationship oriented” and those who are task oriented are concerned with “accomplishing tasks and getting work done” (Nelson and Quick, 2015). These task-oriented leaders, those concerned with work rather than relationships, appeal to followers who want the most basic of the three needs, something to do. This need is met when the leader focuses on the task at