Maslow on Management

Notes on Leadership

. . . the person who seeks power for power, is the one who is just exactly likely to be the one who shouldn’t have it. Such people are apt to use power very badly; to overcome, overpower, use it for their own selfish gratifications.

I am dissatisfied with the material on leadership in the management literature; I think again there’s some tendency, as in McGregor, to be pious about the democratic dogma, rather than using the objective requirements of the situation as the centering point or organizing point for leadership. I think the way that I’ll approach it will be from the point of view of the perfect (paradigmatic) situation, or the enlightened situation, in which the objective requirements of the situation, or of the task, or of the problem, or of the group reign absolutely and in which there are practically no other determinants. This would then provide an answer to the question, Who is the best leader for this particular situation? In this paradigmatic situation, I would have to assume very good cognition of the skills, talents, and abilities of every single person in the group, of one’s self as well as others. I would also assume a totally innocent B- cognition (89) of all the relevant details of the problem situation. I would also assume healthy characters in all the people involved (so that there would not be too much sensitivity, or feeling insulted ...