Written by Catherine Stothart, Leadership Coach | Essenwood Consulting (August 2025)

Every so often we need to adjust our thinking about a topic.  An article from McKinsey in 2022 sets out – with evidence - why we need to go beyond Maslow in our theory and practice of motivation.  When I talk to groups of managers about motivation, many of them have heard of Maslow, but very few have heard of other theories.  And many don’t find Maslow’s concept of “self-actualisation” useful. 

It’s time to give managers something more concrete and practical and there are some newer theories that are easily actionable.  As the McKinsey article says:

“people seek more from their employers than just a pay-check and a safe place to work.  A preponderance of evidence suggests that “good work” also means satisfying employees’ psychological needs.”

What are our psychological needs? 

According to Ryan and Deci^[i], they are needs for:

• Competence (feeling respected for our talents)
• Autonomy (having some choice and freedom)
• Relatedness (having connections with other people). 

If we can satisfy these needs, plus our need for meaning and purpose, we not only feel motivated, we also have greater well-being and sense of “job quality” – a key factor in retention (CIPD Good Work Index 2025).

The challenge for managers is to give people opportunities to fulfil these needs in their work.  We can do this with a shift of emphasis from managers seeing themselves as overseers of task completion to enablers of self-motivation. 

Managers often spend a lot more time on the task areas of their role than on the people areas.  But employees want a more empathic approach, better suited to the post-pandemic world of hybrid working, skills shortages and reduced well-being.  The key capabilities for managers relate to managing people.  This does not mean they can lose sight of the task, but it means that the focus of their attention shifts towards individuals and the team.

Unlocking potential

I see four management capabilities – engaging, developing, delegating and connecting - as key to leading people to meet their psychological needs at work, enabling them to fulfil their purpose and potential.  Here are some practical ways to do it. 

Creating conditions for Good Work

Creating the conditions in which people can fulfil their psychological needs at work is the big challenge for today’s managers, and it is critically important.  As the CIPD Good Work Index 2025 notes:

many people in similar jobs have positive or negative experiences of work that appear to be primarily determined by differences in how they are managed at work and not just the type of work they do.

You can improve how you manage people with the practical actions outlined above.  If, as a manager, you can create the conditions in which people:

• have a sense of purpose
• can build their competence
• have some freedom to act
• feel connected to others

then you will have succeeded in giving them that positive experience, enabling them to be both self-motivated and have greater well-being.

The CIPD concludes that:

'good work matters not just for workers, but for businesses and employers across the UK. Workers who have a positive experience of work report higher motivation and performance in their jobs and are more likely to support colleagues and to put forward ideas and suggestions…..less likely to want to quit their jobs.'

These newer approaches to motivation, taking us beyond Maslow, have power to make a real difference to working lives and to organisational success.

[i] Ryan, R. and Deci, L. (2000) “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being” American Psychologist Vol. 55, No. 1, 68-78