Jeffery D Whippo Describes How Maslow Developed His 5 Hierarchical Categories

Jeffery D Whippo Describes How Maslow Developed His 5 Hierarchical Categories & Depicted Them as a Pyramid of Needs Professional educator and business leader Jeffery D Whippo explains that Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs came about through his study of human motivations. He describes how Maslow developed his five hierarchical categories and depicted them as a pyramid of needs.

1. The bottom level: It consists of the most fundamental, physiological needs, such as pain avoidance.

2. The second level: It is about the need to feel safe from things such as illness or physical harm.

3. The third level: It consists of social needs, or simply the need to feel accepted by others.

4. The fourth level: It consists of needs concerning selfimage, such as the human need for both self-respect and also the respect of one’s peers.

5. The top or highest level of the pyramid is selfactualization, which is concerned with needs that deal with personal growth and development.

Jeffery D Whippo states that Maslow postulated that as the lower and most fundamental needs are met or fulfilled, the higher level needs such as meeting personal growth potential become increasingly more important. He strongly feels that

from a leadership perspective, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can guide leaders in refining their leadership styles in order to meet the specific needs of their followers. He says that depending on the level of the workforce that the leaders are dealing with, in most situations leaders probably will not have to worry about meeting some of the most fundamental needs on the pyramid such as hunger, but the second level of needs that is concerned with worker safety for example can in fact be a need that the leader would need to focus on.

Jeffery Whippo further explains that promoting teamwork and cross team collaboration could fill the social needs of the third pyramid level. Ensuring that employee understands their importance to the team, company and the mission of the company can help in securing the follower’s self-image.

According to him, once the first four levels of the pyramid have been concentrated on, the leader can then focus his or her attention on fostering the personal development of the follower.