Understanding and Changing Your Management Style: Assessments and Tools for Self-Development, 2nd Edition

Chapter Three

Needs

Our Pathways to Competence

We all come into the world with what Jean-Paul Sartre called different “coefficients of adversity,” and our job is to maximize the talents we possess. If we succeed in doing this, we feel that we are competent and have a sense of control over our destiny. Indeed, a desire for a sense of competence is part of everyone's personal development. The carpenter, the pianist, the baseball player, the professional in any field, the worker in the depths of a large organization all want the same thing: a sense of personal accomplishment. Among people with physical disabilities and among those whose fulfillment is blocked by social barriers, this desire for competence is even stronger.

All human beings want ...