As women in leadership, we often face expectations both internally and externally that can feel overwhelming. Managing teams, making strategic decisions, and balancing personal and professional responsibilities often leads to burnout, resentment, and a whole lot of exhaustion! But what if understanding your core needs could help you not only prevent burnout but thrive as a leader, allowing you to lead with clarity and purpose?

Understanding your core needs is essential for creating sustainable leadership and a balanced, resourceful, and helpful approach to decision-making. It can also help your team better understand and improve themselves and their behaviours.

The Six Core Needs: What Drives Us

At the heart of our decisions, behaviours, and emotional responses are six core needs — Certainty, Uncertainty, Significance, Connection, Growth, and Contribution. These needs are essential for personal fulfillment and effective daily functioning. This model comes from the field of Human Needs Psychology. While we all share these needs, the priority we give them varies from person to person — some may have a stronger drive for certainty, while others thrive on uncertainty.

However, to create truly effective and sustainable leadership, we must fulfill all of these needs daily in a way that works for us. Focusing on actions that support our well-being ensures that we’re leading resourcefully and helpfully. Let’s explore how these needs influence leadership and how to meet them in a helpful, sustainable way.

1. Certainty and Uncertainty

Certainty provides security, stability, and predictability, while Uncertainty fuels variety, spontaneity, and change. Meeting both of these needs resourcefully is crucial for avoiding burnout while staying open to new opportunities.

Meeting Certainty Resourcefully:

• Leadership Example: Setting clear routines and boundaries creates predictability, helping you meet your need for certainty and manage the pressures of leadership.

• Client Story: Sarah, a senior manager, was feeling overwhelmed by an unpredictable workload in her new role. By setting aside 30 minutes each morning to plan her day, she met her need for certainty in a helpful way, allowing her to feel grounded and lead effectively.

Meeting Certainty Unresourcefully:

• Unhelpful Behaviour: A desperate need for control can lead to resistance to change, stifling growth and innovation. Sarah initially resisted a business restructure due to the uncertainty it created. Through our coaching sessions, she reflected on her core needs and realised her strong need for certainty was driving her unhelpful reaction and behaviour.

• How Coaching Helped: In our sessions, we discussed how Sarah could create and bring awareness to more certainty in her life —such as by establishing a morning routine, nurturing her long-term relationship with her girlfriend, and having regular coffee catch-ups at familiar cafés with good friends. By focusing on what was still stable and adding a few reliable activities to her week, she reduced her overwhelm and was able to embrace the changes at work.

Meeting Uncertainty Resourcefully:

• Leadership Example: Embracing new challenges and staying open to change fosters creativity and adaptability.

• Client Story: Sarah initially resisted change, but through our coaching, she realised that while her need for certainty is high, she could meet it resourcefully in other areas of her life. This helped her manage discomfort during periods of change, and she became more open to the opportunities the restructure offered.

Meeting Uncertainty Unresourcefully:

• Unhelpful Behaviour: A constant craving for uncertainty without grounding can lead to chaos. For example, jumping from one new project to another without focus or follow-through can leave teams feeling scattered and overwhelmed. Leaders may find themselves engaging in reactive decision-making without a clear strategy, which undermines long-term success.

2. Significance and Connection

Significance drives us to feel important, valued, and recognised, while Connection fulfills our need for belonging and meaningful relationships.

Meeting Significance Resourcefully:

• Leadership Example: Celebrating wins and acknowledging your own contributions, rather than only relying on external praise, reinforces your sense of adding value and is deeply rewarding.

• Client Story: Lisa, a team leader, struggled with her need for external validation. Through her coaching program, we worked on shifting her focus to recognising her own contributions, rather than waiting for approval from her boss. This allowed her to feel more grounded and maintain confidence, even when external praise wasn’t forthcoming.

Meeting Significance Unresourcefully:

• Unhelpful Behaviour: Constantly seeking external validation can lead to burnout. Lisa often felt deflated when her director didn’t acknowledge her work. In our conversations, we discussed how she could build internal validation systems, enabling her to celebrate her own wins. Though initially uncomfortable, Lisa eventually learned to identify her successes and rely less on others’ recognition.

Meeting Connection Resourcefully:

• Leadership Example: Building authentic relationships by recognising and celebrating others’ wins fosters trust and collaboration. Leaders who genuinely acknowledge others strengthen connections and draw people closer.

• Client Story: Through our coaching program, Lisa realised that true connection didn’t require people-pleasing or sacrificing her own needs. By setting healthy boundaries, she built stronger, more authentic relationships with her team, allowing her to step confidently into a new, more senior role.

Meeting Connection Unresourcefully:

• Unhelpful Behaviour: Sacrificing your own needs to maintain connection or avoid conflict in order to be liked can drain your energy and lead to resentment. Constantly saying “yes” to please others whilst depleting your resources and leaving you feeling unfulfilled.

3. Growth and Contribution

Growth refers to our need for continual learning and improvement, while Contribution centers on making a meaningful impact on others.

Meeting Growth Resourcefully:

• Leadership Example: Investing in personal development sharpens your leadership skills and reinforces your sense of worthiness through growth. This could involve coaching, leadership programs, or other self-investment activities.

• Client Story: Elena, a senior manager, enrolled in a leadership course that not only improved team dynamics but also helped her appreciate the importance of investing in herself. When clients commit to growth through coaching with an experienced and impactful coach, the results are life-changing.

Meeting Contribution Resourcefully:

• Leadership Example: Contribution can be both paid and unpaid, but it’s essential to recognise the value of paid contributions and ensure the time, energy, and boundaries you set around unpaid contributions serve both you and others.

• Client Story: One client was over-committed to mentoring and burned out from accommodating mentees’ schedules, even agreeing to late-night conversations to accommodate international time zones. In our coaching sessions, we discussed setting and communicating clearer boundaries — requiring mentees to take the lead in scheduling and managing topics. She was able to maintain her health and effectiveness while continuing to contribute meaningfully.

Meeting Contribution Unresourcefully:

• Unhelpful Behaviour: Over-committing to unpaid work or contributions without clear boundaries or reflecting on how this fits into your life can lead to depletion. If you’re constantly giving without setting boundaries or communicating clearly about what you can give, you may end up exhausted, frustrated and unable to focus on your own needs and growth.

Recognising Unresourceful Behaviours

Here’s the key: If we’re not consciously meeting our core needs, we’ll unconsciously fulfill them in unresourceful and unhelpful ways. For instance, resisting change due to a high need for certainty can block opportunities for growth, while constantly seeking external validation for significance can erode your sense of self-worth.

Ask yourself: Are you meeting your core needs in resourceful or unresourceful ways? How can you consciously adjust your approach to fulfill your core needs sustainably and lead with greater balance and effectiveness? What activities in your career and life are currently meeting all of your needs resourcefully?

Three Steps to Fulfill Your Core Needs as a Leader  

1. Identify Where Your Needs Are Being Met Unresourcefully: Reflect on how your needs for certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution are driving your behaviour. Are you overcompensating in one area while neglecting others?

2. Adjust Your Approach: If one need is being over- or under-met, take deliberate action to restore balance. For example, if you feel overwhelmed by too much certainty (leading to boredom), or if you’re reaching for uncertainty in unhelpful ways, lean into resourceful strategies. Likewise, if your need for connection is being neglected, consciously take action to foster it in healthy ways.

3. Take Resourceful Actions: Identify simple, sustainable actions to meet your needs. For instance, set boundaries to fulfill your need for certainty, or embrace new challenges to meet your need for growth — without burning out.

Coaching Questions for Reflection  

1. What core needs do you rely on most heavily, and how are they driving your leadership?

2. Where are you meeting your core needs in unresourceful ways?

3. How can you adjust your actions this week to meet your core needs in a more sustainable way?

4. What activities in your leadership and life meet all of your needs resourcefully?

    

Action Steps for this Week 

1. Schedule reflection weekly to assess how you’re meeting your needs.

2. Create a balance plan: Identify one unresourceful behaviour and brainstorm a small, resourceful action to replace it.

3. Celebrate a small win: Acknowledge your leadership efforts this week without relying on external validation.

By recognising and prioritising your core needs, you can prevent burnout, set healthier boundaries, and lead with authenticity and confidence. Want to explore more? Read my article: Are You Leading or Just Reacting? How to Stay Above the Line in Leadership.