Stewart Leadership White Papers

The Need to Be Independent:

Promoting and Supporting Employee Autonomy

All employees share three human needs.

The need to be liked, the need to feel competent in their roles, and the need for independence.

Of the three, the latter can often be the strongest motivating factor for employees, but it’s also one of the hardest for organizations to consistently provide.

In this whitepaper, we discuss how:

• humans are hard-wired for independence
• developing leaders creates greater autonomy and increased retention
• career management support increases
• an employee’s feeling of self-determination
• listening to employees and acting on their concerns increases their overall efficacy