Corrigendum: Leadership as a determinant of need fulfillment: implications for meta-theory, methods, and practice.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1427072.].

Leadership as a determinant of need fulfillment: implications for meta-theory, methods, and practice.

Of all the most prominent business concepts (e.g., DE&I, employee well-being, employee engagement, organizational culture, etc.) none rivals leadership in terms of public interest and annual monetary investment. Despite the obvious importance of leadership as a determinant of many important outcomes, the concept of leadership has been surprisingly hard to pin down, lacking consensus as to its precise meaning. As numerous authors introduce ever more constructs (e.g., servant leadership, toxic leadership, sustainable leadership, transformational leadership, etc.), the leadership concept has become emblematic of the problem of construct proliferation. Like the related fields of employee engagement, subjective well-being, and organizational culture, the leadership field is in desperate need of a clearly articulated meta-theory to house its many constructs, allowing theory and measurement to build up instead of continuing to pile up. This paper argues for grounding the concept of leadership within the psychological literature on human needs. In reviewing the leading definitions of leadership in the literature we find that they are reducible to a core set of follower needs that can be facilitated or inhibited by leaders. We propose that there is substantial value in adopting a comprehensive needs-based taxonomy over current approaches. We consider the impact of setting the concepts of leadership within existing need constructs for each of the following: (a) theory, especially the development of leadership frameworks and particularly how the concept of leadership relates to the concepts of organizational culture, employee well-being, and employee engagement; (b) methods, including the value of applying a comprehensive, structured model; and (c) practice, where we emphasize the practical advantages of clear operational definitions.

Values as Motives: Implications for theory, methods, and practice.

The concept of human values is central to the study of culture, ethics, politics, anthropology, sociology, social psychology, environmental studies, health policy, education, management, and human capital. Because it represents the ultimate "why" behind decisions and behaviors, as a concept it plays an outsized role in both theory and practice in each of these fields. Despite the centrality of human values in these domains, the concept lacks theoretical consensus among scholars and practitioners. Like the concepts of subjective well-being, organizational culture, employee engagement, and leadership, the values literature suffers from concept proliferation and cries out for clearly stated definitions that embed the concept within a solid theoretical framework. In this article, we advocate for a fundamental reconsideration of the concept of values, anchoring it within a new psychological theory of human motivation based on first principles. Our primary contribution lies in demonstrating that the operational definitions utilized by academics and practitioners alike can be thought of as attempts to approach concepts of human motivation, specifically, emotional needs, without fully getting there. We review the leading definitions of human values in the literature, concluding that they can be distilled to a fundamental set of human emotional needs, each associated with extensive literatures of their own. We introduce a comprehensive framework of 12 human emotional needs and argue that a comprehensive motivational framework offers significant advantages over current theoretical approaches, which tend to spin off an ever-expanding list of concepts. We consider the impact of embedding values concepts within existing motivational constructs with clear benefits for: (a) theory development, (b) method development, and (c) practical applications, emphasizing the advantages of clear operational definitions.

The structure of human motivation.

BACKGROUND: A unified model of human motivation has been recently introduced that integrates all prior "mini-theories" of motivation into a single, symmetrical model based on first principles: four life domains crossed by three levels of attainment, resulting in 12 discrete motivations. Evidence from a series of studies using a novel image-based method is used to test structural hypotheses derived from a unified model of human motivation. METHOD: The studies employ large samples (810n to 986n) of working adults who conducted a time-constrained image-based exercise to measure the relative presence or absence of different emotional needs. RESULTS: These studies provide support for the theoretical model, suggesting that there is substantial heuristic and practical value in a structured framework of motivating needs. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that our theoretical model reflects deep interrelationships between discrete types of human motivation, and by linking specific measures to a comprehensive model of human motivation, researchers can have confidence that they have adequately measured the motivation construct.

Well-being as Need Fulfillment: Implications for Theory, Methods, and Practice.

The most prominent concept championed by human resource professionals, point solution providers, and the mental health care industry is the construct of holistic well-being. Despite the tremendous attention focused on well-being, the concept lacks theoretical consensus among its proponents. Like the concept of engagement, this field cries out for clearly stated definitions that embed the concept within a theoretical framework, allowing theory development to avoid the prolific category errors of the past 50 years. This paper argues for a more sophisticated approach to the concept of well-being, grounding it in the vast psychological literature on human motivation. Herein lies the contribution of our paper; we argue that the apparent diversity of operational definitions employed by academics and practitioners can be understood as tentative attempts to draw ever nearer to key motivational concepts, without ever quite getting there. We review the leading definitions of well-being in the literature and find that they are reducible to a core set of human motives, each backed by full research traditions of their own, which populate a comprehensive model of twelve human motivations. We propose that there is substantial value in adopting a comprehensive motivational taxonomy over current approaches, which have the effect of "snowballing" ever more dimensions and elements. We consider the impact of setting well-being concepts in existing motivational constructs for each of the following: (a) theory, especially the development of well-being frameworks; (b) methods, including the value of applying a comprehensive, structural approach; and (c) practice, where we emphasize the practical advantages of clear operational definitions.

Employee Engagement as Human Motivation: Implications for Theory, Methods, and Practice.

The central theoretical construct in human resource management today is employee engagement. Despite its centrality, clear theoretical and operational definitions are few and far between, with most treatments failing to separate causes from effects, psychological variables from organizational variables, and internal from external mechanisms. This paper argues for a more sophisticated approach to the engagement concept, grounding it in the vast psychological literature on human motivation. Herein lies the contribution of our paper; we argue that the apparent diversity of operational definitions employed by academics and practitioners can be understood as tentative attempts to draw ever nearer to key motivational concepts, but never quite get there. We review the leading definitions of employee engagement in the literature and find that they are reducible to a core set of human motives, each backed by full literatures of their own, which populate a comprehensive model of twelve human motivations. We propose that there is substantial value in adopting a comprehensive motivational taxonomy over current approaches, which have the effect of "snowballing" ever more constructs adopted from a variety of fields and theoretical traditions. We consider the impact of rooting engagement concepts in existing motivational constructs for each of the following: (a) theory, especially the development of engagement systems; (b) methods, including the value of applying a comprehensive, structural approach; and (c) practice, where we emphasize the practical advantages of clear operational definitions.

Theoretical and Empirical Foundations for a Unified Pyramid of Human Motivation.

Revisions are proposed to the taxonomic model of human motivation of Forbes (Review of General Psychology, 15(2), 85-98, 2011) in order to incorporate a heretofore missing fourth life domain, the spiritual. The growing literature on spiritual motives is systematically reviewed in accordance with literature review standards for theory development (Templier & Paré, 2018) focusing on the objective of identifying comprehensive theoretical systems that explicitly incorporate the spiritual domain as one of a limited set of human life domains. The structure of the Forbes model is contrasted with thirteen theoretical systems that explicitly incorporate the spiritual as a fourth life domain. Consistent with the Forbes model, the spiritual domain is proposed to consist of three modes of existence (Being, Doing, Having) represented as justice motivation, moral motivation, and transcendental motivation, respectively, as well as both promotion and prevention goals within each of the three motives. Empirical evidence is reviewed in support of a revised heuristic device wherein the Spiritual domain is closely linked with the Intrapsychic and Interpersonal domains, but not the Instrumental domain, resulting in a pyramidal structure and corresponding set of testable hypotheses.