When the physiological needs have all been satisfied, Maslow theorized, the needs for self-actualization become activated – described by Maslow as the individual’s need to be and do that which the person was "born to do". "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." When these needs go unfulfilled, the individual will be restless and on edge.

The questioner on LinkedIn wondered how useful applying Maslow´s theory in the daily management practice, in a departmental level and even in mentoring and coaching related activities to reinforce employees’ morale, encourage teams’ commitment and in improving employee satisfaction might prove.

And it called for those who may have consciously or intuitively applied the theory about the results achieved.

One respondent at least had.

“When I was leading staff on a daily basis my objective was to always create an environment that met the needs of each employee as closely as possible,” he wrote. “To do so meant that I had to be very aware of not only the organization's expectations for our performance, but also what each of my staff was most passionate about, what took energy away from them, and what the obstacles were to their reaching the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy on a more consistent basis. I saw my role as removing those obstacles,” he wrote.

“Before anything like this can be successful it requires a high trust relationship with your staff. They have to feel sufficiently confident that they can speak openly and honestly about the realities of their situation in order for you to understand the obstacles they are facing externally as well as internally that may be affecting their ability to achieve the highest levels of self actualization. What we see of people in the workplace is only a portion of what makes up that person, yet all of the joys and stresses experienced by that person will affect their performance at work.

“While some of the work changed significantly within my group, and as each person experienced life changes throughout their time working with me, I was able to retain people by developing creative options that respected their passion and abilities, supported them to work within changing roles and allowed as much as possible for them to be the authors of their own destinies.

“I still hear from most of my former staff on a regular basis and many will consult with me when they are considering career change or other work related decisions. For me, I feel it is an honour to still be considered a trusted colleague.”

Sounds like a fair result.