What motivates people to seek leadership roles? Well, some people who wind up in leadership roles don’t seek them at all but find themselves accepting leadership through accidents of fate or circumstance. Some simply enjoy relationships in groups and like working with followers and peers. Some seek power, prestige, and other forms of ego gratification.
Over the long haul, however, the most effective leaders tend to be motivated by achievement and problem solving.
A number of years ago, a psychologist named David MacClellan did a series of studies which suggest that a very important motive for many people in leadership roles is achievement. Subsequent studies seem to agree that some people simply like to accomplish things and take great satisfaction in setting and achieving goals.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs seem to be particularly driven by achievement motives, even more so than by dreams of wealth or material comfort. The most effective leaders of all, in fact, seem driven not only to solve problems for their group or community but also to seek new problems to solve. Such leaders are particularly effective because they never cease to help their group or community to identify and address the problems confronting them.
Solutions to social problems always contain the seeds of new and different problems, so leaders who rest on their laurels don’t stay leaders very long.
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