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McClelland’s Needs Theory

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of David McClelland is flexibility. I appreciate that his ideas are not “one size fits all.” While he does assert people are motivated by high-level needs — manifest needs, he recognizes that individuals bring their own personality and experiences to the mix. Yes, people share typical traits but are, at the same time, unique.
Everyone is driven by power, love, and achievement, but “different needs are dominant in different people” (Nelson and Quick 157). In essence, different things make us tick. I appreciate this humanistic approach to understanding motivation because it looks at what’s on the inside. It challenges us to realize there’s more than meets the eye.
“McClelland maintains that each of us has a Motivation Profile” (Forbes 64).
But, what does this mean in the real world…in the business world? I think, it inspires leaders to refrain from operating on “auto pilot” and instead take a more engaged approach to management. This ensures greater situational awareness — or in our case what I’ll call personality awareness, thereby, uncovering the dominant needs or motivating forces that dictate people’s behavior.
People who are driven by the need for achievement are concerned with “issues of excellence, competition, challenging goals, persistence, and overcoming difficulties” (Nelson and Quick 157). They tend to outperform others and take great pleasure in the doing…in the work itself. Achievement-motivated individuals are goal setters who seek the middle ground. They are not risk-takers but rather aggressive realists (The Three Basic Approaches to Improving Productivity: David C. McClelland 2). Furthermore, people with a high need for achievement want feedback, specifically job-related feedback (The Three Basic Approaches to Improving Productivity: David C. McClelland 2). Finally,

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