Summary

According to Daniel Goleman, a democratic leadership style helps to build trust and commitment to the organization and its goals. Now let's consider the affiliative leadership style, which emphasizes the importance of making employees feel good about their jobs. Affiliative leaders are quick to give recognition for good work, and offer plenty of positive feedback. The result is greater harmony, morale and trust as employees feel more secure about taking risks. Nevertheless, as we will see, this approach also has its drawbacks.

The Background

Let`s see how the affiliative leadership style might work in practice. Within a year of becoming the executive director of Education Unlimited (a nonprofit that provides mentoring opportunities to low-income children), David Owings found himself overseeing staff implementation plans. David knew from experience that the implementation plans were challenging to put together, but he believed that this was the only way to assure that the board`s strategic plan was implemented.

The Solution

To keep people motivated and loyal to the process, he decided to take each supervisor out to lunch to find out how the process was working out, and offer his support and guidance. David later learned that these discussions played an important role in creating the impression that David cared about the staff, and wanted them to succeed.

Lessons Learned

As the example shows, affiliative leaders are first and foremost relationship builders. Once they have built strong relationships with staff, they often use those relationships to motivate staff to run the extra mile. However, a word of caution is in order: the affiliative style is not suitable if staff are trying to navigate through complex organizational challenges. In such situations, only offering support and encouragement may leave them feeling rudderless. To avoid this, the affiliative style should be used in conjunction with the authoritative style, which states a vision, sets standards, and lets people know how their work is futhering the group's goals.