Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Project Management

Developed by Osman Furkan Simsek

Abstract

Maslow’s need of hierarchy is a theory about five stages of human needs. Project managers are directly in contact with their team as a leader or manager. Therefore, they need to know how human psychology works for managing and motivating their team through the project aims.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Inspired from Maslow hierarchy of needs DTU wiki article. " .

Abraham Maslow wrote the “Hierarchy of Needs” theory. He studied human motivation and successful people’s life such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Frederick Douglas. Maslow argued that humans are motivated with unsatisfied needs and more basic needs should be satisfied before more complex needs. There are 5 different types of needs in his pyramid, which are physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization needs. [2]

People should fulfil these needs step by step. All our behaviours can be explained by our needs and human life is going through satisfying these needs. To explain this theory better, I examine the needs more detailly.