Leadership as a way of being

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a well known framework for understanding human needs and motivation. As we satisfy our more basic survival needs, we move to concentrate on addressing more complex needs that relate to human connection, meaning and thriving. We can move up and down this hierarchy and shift focus with context and without any necessary resolution but as we meet the more basic needs we are supported in efforts to satisfy the more complex needs.

A business can be understood as having its own needs. In the headline image I've sketched out one way you might consider these needs in their own hierarchy. At the most basic level, a business needs to have something to offer, a product or service, something that adds value where there is some demand for it. But behind this basic offering, a business will have structures and processes that enable or protect the delivery of value and potentially add value themselves. Business functions and demarcated roles provide structure, and clear & efficient processes provide structure. This all provides internal stability and safety in operational planning.

Strategy also provides structure and safety in doing business. Good strategy defines the business model, considers the internal and external conditions, maps product-market fit, outlines customer segments and channels and importantly articulates the value proposition. Strategic choices give a business its shape just as much as organisational structure.

If basic needs are met i.e. you have some viable product or service and an [organised] unique way of sustainable value creation then the question of growth relies on addressing additional higher level needs. As Drucker's famous quote warns "Culture eats strategy for breakfast". The psychological health of a company can be diagnosed in its culture e.g. the human relationships, the values, the supportive and encouraging environment that fosters inclusion and belonging. And in addition, a level of autonomy and opportunity to build and demonstrate competence contributes to performance, motivation and satisfaction in a company. The performance-feedback cycle provides purpose to the individual employee and to the organisation as a whole. Knowing what you do and why it matters to your organisation, and understanding the organisations purpose is quite a complex but important need. But like all other needs mentioned, it can theoretically be satisfied.

• You can have a sufficiently attractive/viable product and/or service.
• You can have sufficient structures and processes and a sufficiently comprehensive strategy.
• You can have a sufficiently positive and strategy-enhancing culture.
• You can find sufficient purpose in your work, or have a clearly mission-driven organisation, and sufficiently articulate the vision and mission of your business to give meaning to what you do.

And this is similar to a major distinction made by Maslow. He referred to the lower needs in the hierarchy as Deficiency Needs (D-Needs), i.e. something that might be lacking but can be sufficiently fulfilled and taken off the table. He separated these needs out from Growth or Being Needs (B-Needs). He placed self-actualisation (being the best version of yourself you can be) here atop his hierarchy, later supplanting it with transcendence (going beyond yourself in the social or spiritual realm). A continuously motivating factor, an insatiable need. An inspirational end in itself rather than simply a means to an end.

Being needs, when you have the time and resources to focus on them, require constant cultivation but return dividends on that investment. Leadership for a business, sits atop its hierarchy of needs. You could even go so far as to invert the pyramid and place leadership as driving and supporting purpose, purpose enabling culture, culture underpinning structure and strategy and those internal elements ultimately delivering the product or service.

Leadership for a business, sits atop its hierarchy of needs.

Maslow expanded his conception of Being Needs in the 1960's and 1970's to include cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualising and transcendent elements. Leadership as a way of being cuts across all of these. It can be stimulating and challenging, moving and inspiring, impactful and transformational, and moves focus from the self to a focus on others with servant leadership and pursuit of goals greater than those of the leader. It requires learning and mindset, art and emotion, self-awareness and compassion, social awareness and vision.

And as a need it cannot be satisfied, it requires continuous attention and development, and provides unlimited motivation - manifested in ambition. You cannot really have sufficient leadership, only evolving leadership as a work in progress. Leadership is not a job to be done, it cannot be summited, it is a Sisyphean undertaking and a way of being. And good leadership enriches life, the life of the leader and the lives of those around them.

A great thing about our human (and business) potential is that we can will things into being, pulled from our imaginations and aspirations into reality. This value creation, from idea to execution requires leadership. As goes another famous Peter Drucker quote.

The best way to predict the future is to create it