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Category: McClelland’s Need Theory

  • Need for Affiliation, Autonomy

    In the last byte, we looked at the need for power as a source of motivation. In today’s byte, we look at the need for affiliation and how it forms a source of motivation and the need for autonomy.

    The Need for Affiliation concerns itself with people’s interest in establishing and maintaining warm, close intimate relationship with other people. People with high need for affiliation express their emotions and feelings to others and expect the same in return from others. These people feel disturbed when there are conflicts and complication in their relationships, and generally work through any barrier in their closeness to people. This nature of theirs gets them to be very close and personal with others, they emphasize friendship and companionship.

    Managers could need to understand this need of the employees who work under him/her to really be able to leverage their ability and keep them motivated.

    Moving beyond the need of affiliation, researcher Murray identified another need – the need for autonomy. This represents the desire for independence and freedom from any constraints. The people who have high need for autonomy like to work alone and to control the pace of work. They dislike bureaucracy – rules, regulations and procedures. Entrepreneurs are generally found to fall into the category of people who have a pretty high need for autonomy.

  • Need for Power

    In the last byte, we understood the need for achievement as a motivational factor for people better. In today’s byte, we look at the need for Power as a driver of Motivation.

    Need for Power as described earlier, is concerned with making and impact on others. It is the desire to influence others, the urge to change people or events and the desire to make a difference in life. This need is generally interpersonal in nature as it involves influencing others in the environment. People with high need for power could generally be like control people and events that happen around them.

    McClelland makes 2 distinctions in power:

    1. Socialized Power – which could be used for the benefit of others
    2. Personalized Power – which can be used for individual gains
    The Socialized Power is constructive in nature, and could yield a better bonding between people while Personalize power could be very disruptive and have destructive impact.

    McClelland’s research has indicated that managers who were rated “best” in the research had a very high need for socialized power, as opposed to personalized power. That is, they have an interest in organizational goals and have a concern for others; they also have a desire to be useful to the larger group, organization or society.

    Managers with high socialized power needs and a good success track record are found to grow the quickest in their organization compared to their contemporaries.

  • Need for Achievement

    In the last byte, we began understanding McClelland’s Need Theory and the definitions of the various theories. In today’s byte we look at the need of achievement in greater detail.

    Need for Achievement:
    As mentioned in the last byte, the need for achievement concerns with issues like excellence, competition, challenging goals, persistence, and overcoming difficulties. People with high need of achievement could be seen seeking excellence in performance, and enjoy working towards challenges and difficult goals and is perceiving and competitive at work. Such people have been found to perform better than those with this at a moderate or low need for achievement.

    People with such high need of achievement are having 3 distinct characteristics:

    1. They set goals that are moderately difficult, yet achievable.
    2. They like to receive feedback on their progress towards these goals.
    3. They do not like having external events or other people interfere with their progress
    These people often hope to succeed and plan for it. They do not mind working single handedly or in teams, as long as they get the appropriate model for their task. These people find it easy to develop expertise and they are very good at what they do. They are found to develop competency and expertise in the field they choose to endeavor, pretty quickly.

    Research has shown that achievement tendencies are highest for the United States, an individualistic culture, and lowest for Japan and Hungary, which are collective societies.

  • McClelland’s Need Theory

    In the last byte, we looked at ERG theory and understood what aspects of motivation it could explain. In today’s blog we look at McClelland’s Need Theory and attempt understanding it. While the first 3 theories of that we have discussed this far deal with the need as a basis of motivation. We now shift our attention to discuss about theories that focus on personality and learned needs.

    McClelland identified three learned or acquired needs, which he called manifest needs. These are:

    1. Need for Achievement
    2. Need for Power
    3. Need for Affiliation
    Some individuals have a high need for achievement, whereas others have a moderate or low need of achievement. Similarly one could think of the other two needs. Different needs dominate different people. A Manager may need a strong need of power a moderate need for achievement and a weak need for affiliation, this combination gives rise to a very different implication on the behavior of an individual.

     

    We could define these needs as below:
    Need for Achievement: Is a manifest (easily perceived) need that concerns individuals’ issues of excellence, competition, challenging goals, persistence, and overcoming difficulties.
    Need for Power: Is a manifest (easily perceived) need that concerns an individual’s need to make an impact on others, influence others, change people or events and make a difference in life
    Need for Affiliation: Is a manifest (easily perceived) need that concerns an individual’s need to establish and maintain warm, close, intimate relationships with other people.

    We shall explore these to a greater depth in the next byte.