A 10-member panel of judges selected two North Carolina community colleges with a high degree of democratic governance and two community colleges with a low degree of democratic governance. All full-time instructors at these four institutions were mailed a research instrument based on the semantic differential technique, and designed to test six needs: security, social, the esteem of others, self-esteem, autonomy, and self-actualization. One hundred eighty-eight usable responses were returned (59 percent). It was found that democratic governance has a positive, significant relationship to needs satisfaction, especially for academic instructors. Thus, if a community college assigns a high priority to faculty needs satisfaction, its management system should make provisions for involving the faculty in decision-making. In particular, community college administrators should attempt to involve academic instructors in decision-making. Efforts to satisfy the needs of technical and vocational instructors could be concentrated more on classroom-related issues and on benefits. To eliminate role strain, community colleges should try to attract instructors who are committed to the community college philosophy. Data are displayed in four tables, and the semantic differential instrument is appended. (Author/NHM)