Sustainability Leadership from Maslow's Perspective

This theory of Abraham Maslow (1943) provides an outline of human needs that is regarded as a systematic way to pursue the needs while keeping the flow of motivation intact. Maslow divides the human needs into five broad based categories and they are: 1. Physiological Needs: Air, Water, Nourishment and Sleep – these are the basic needs of humans. It's only after meeting this need, humans can look towards sustenance, and thus arrives the need like Safety need. Sustainable leaders are expected to connect themselves with the significance of the availability of all of these components to all members.

Safety Needs: This need covers the issues of safety in both living and in workplace, medical insurance, job security and financial backup. Security provides much needed mental space and time to the humans, where they can afford to pursue another vital need like Social Need. Here too the sustainable leaders should connect themselves, but more from a global perspective. 3. Social Needs: Group activities, socialization, or enhanced interpersonal communication are the elements that fulfil the social needs through which humans form a sense of belonging to their environment, which in turn paves the way for the next need, that is Esteem Need.

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Group activities must be a continuous process in sustainability leadership practice. 4. Esteem Needs: At this stage humans turn their focus on esteem that involves recognition and social status, at the outer world and self-respect or sense of achievement in one's own mind. This creates the platform to pursue the self-realization process, which is a unique and endless process, and it is from this junction, the sustainable leaders' real task starts, as their operating area in much larger and requires more mental space.

5. Self-actualization: Every human life is ideally poised to pursue this need where one can delve deep within and keep on discovering oneself from many perspective both on mental and physical plane – it is something like playing in one's own garden – in Maslow's words, "Self-actualized persons have frequent occurrences of peak experiences, which are moments of profound happiness and harmony" (Maslow, 1943).

Earlier discussions on the principles and the expected role of sustainable leaders clearly points that their task blooms best at this stage of human needs, where humans have greater vision and have greater understanding about their ideal role on earth as they are assigned to enable people to adapt to and prosper in their increasingly complex environment (Capra 1997). Proximity to Servant Leadership Model Going by its nature, sustainable leaders at best comes close to the servant leadership model, which is a new avatar of transformational leadership model and which, too, relies on total service and total involvement with followers.

Here the focus of the leader remains fixed and untainted with its primary aim to serve others (Greenleaf, 1977). One great example of such leadership remains in the life and work of Holy Jesus Christ (Matthew 20:25-28) as Christ ushered total change from the core of their followers through serving wholeheartedly to them. While sustainability leadership banks more on emotional intelligence, servant leadership banks on intrinsic rewards, which too banks on emotional intelligence and which, according to Deci (1975), are the tools to evoke a sense of personal causation - i. e., an inward mechanism serving as the guiding engine for the action.

Passing on the Mantle Change of leadership is almost always associated with emotionally charged situation that involves feelings of separation, expectation, apprehension, abandonment, loss or grief (Hart, 1993). however, sustainable leadership plans and prepares itself right from the day of appointment. This trait too matches with the motto of Maslow's self-actualization, but strangely much ahead of the period prescribed by Maslow.

This indeed adds another uniqueness to this model of leadership. Conclusion Sustainable leaders need to be more equipped than other categories of leaders, as they not only aim to transform the members of the organization, but also aims to change the prevailing condition to bring out greater results for the world itself. For that matter they utilize their emotional intelligence and spiritual ability to look both inside and outside the box and constantly thrive to achieve sustainable development for their organization and for the world.

The making of a sustainable leader amply proves that it is the leadership wisdom that "enables leaders to enact principles of sustainability in organisational practices, processes and policies”.

References

Badaracco, J. (2002). Leading quietly. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Capra, F. (1997). The Web of Life: A new synthesis of mind and matter. London: Harper Collins. Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic Motivation. New York: Plenum.