SUMMARY
Autonomy supportive motivating styles benefit students educationally and in terms of self-determination. Teachers, however, often use controlling motivating styles due to perceived pressures, and notably due to high-stakes testing (Pelletier, Seguin-Levesque, & Legault, 2002; Reeve, 2009). Humans’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness have been identified within self-determination theory as essential to human growth, development, and optimal functioning (Deci & Vansteenkiste, 2004). Leaders influence the satisfaction of employees’ basic psychological needs (Gagne & Deci, 2005); therefore, the identification of a relationship between the basic psychological needs satisfaction of teachers and teachers’ motivating styles may hold practical implications for school leaders. The purpose of this work is to review the literature pertaining to the constructs of basic psychological needs and teachers’ motivating styles, within the framework of self-determination theory, and to propose a potential relationship between the basic psychological needs satisfaction of teachers and teachers’ motivating styles.