Elevate your Leadership: Wants vs. Needs
6/21/23
In life and in leadership, being clear about who you are, your role, and what you want to achieve can take you far. And it all starts with gaining clarity about your wants and your needs.
Having a deep understanding of your wants and needs can help identify where you need to put forth an effort to achieve the things that are important to you—personally and professionally. But what is the difference between your wants and your needs? Of course, we can all refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs we learned about in school, which include food, water, and shelter. But there’s more to it than that.
Needs are necessities. Yes, that includes food, water, and shelter (all tangible things), but it also includes intangible things such as emotional needs, positive experiences, intellectual stimulation, companionship, and friendship.
Wants can include materialistic items such as jewelry, cars, and vacations, but it also encompasses emotional and intellectual experiences. Wants are what your goals and dreams are for yourself—professional goals included.
Learning to identify your wants and your needs can help you make tough decisions, be confident in your decisions, and push the needle forward. All of which allow you and your business to grow.
For example, investing in staff to take over your tasks requires clarity – clarity about the state of the business and clarity about your need to delegate tasks – so you can maximize your time and help lead your company to the next level. Though it may be clear what your next step should be, that doesn’t mean that it won’t come with or without obstacles – like learning to trust others, letting go, and accepting change.
Finding clarity about your wants and needs requires time, consideration, and scrutiny of who you are. A great place to start is to do a deep dive into getting to know yourself better.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
What adjectives would you use to describe yourself?
What adjectives do you think others would use to describe you?
What do you want for yourself and what do you need for yourself?
What do you want that you do not need and what do you need that you do not want?
What do you need to do or change so your needs and wants are fulfilled?
Answering these questions can help you gain clarity about yourself and what’s important to you, which is a necessary step in excelling both personally and professionally. Think of this as an opportunity to better know yourself – to be clear about who you are, what your role is, and what you want to achieve – and to elevate your leadership starting by identifying your wants and needs.