Need for power
Also known as: nPow
A drive to have impact, influence, or control over other people and one's environment.
What it means
Need for power is a dispositional motive to feel and exert influence or control over others and the surrounding world, expressed through seeking positions of authority, persuading, helping, or asserting dominance. McClelland distinguished a personalized power orientation, aimed at self-aggrandizement and dominating others, from a socialized power orientation, channeled into benefiting groups and institutions — the latter, when paired with self-restraint, characterizes effective leaders in his 'leadership motive pattern.' Like other implicit motives it is typically assessed through imaginative storytelling rather than self-report. The nuance is that power motivation is morally neutral in itself; its consequences hinge on whether it is personalized or socialized and on the activity-inhibition that disciplines it. It matters because it predicts who seeks influence and, in its socialized form, who leads well.
Examples
A manager high in socialized power motivation gets satisfaction from building a team that succeeds, rather than from personally outshining everyone.
A committee member high in personalised power motivation fights hardest over who chairs the meeting, and shows little interest in what the meeting actually decides.
A doctor drawn to public health enjoys changing one hospital protocol that touches thousands of patients more than she would enjoy the pay of private practice.
First described in Henry Murray (1938); developed by David McClelland (1970s).