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The Need for Achievement (N-Ach), is the extent to which a person wants to perform
difficult and challenging tasks on a high level. Some characteristics of high N-Ach people:
They want to have success and need to receive positive feedback often.
They seek to stretch themselves and thus tend to avoid both low-risk and high-risk situations. They avoid
low-risk situations because the easily attained success is not a genuine achievement. In high-risk projects,
achievers see the outcome as one of chance rather than a result of their own effort.
McClelland believes that these people make the best leaders, although there can be a tendency to demand
too much of their staff in the belief that they are all also highly results driven.
Need for Affiliation
The Need for Affiliation (N-Affil) means that people seek good interpersonal
The Need for Power (N-Pow) is typical for people who like to be in
charge.
They can be grouped into two types: personal and institutional power.
People with a high need for personal power want to direct and influence others.
A high need for institutional power means that people like to organize the efforts of others to
achieve the goals of the organization.
time by the cultural background of the individual and his life experience.
Training can be used to modify a need profile. Nevertheless, one of the needs is the dominant
one, also depending on the personality. Unlike Maslow, McClelland did not specify any
The importance of the different needs at work depends upon the position one occupies. The
need for achievement and the need for power are typical for middle and top managers.