Affiliative leadership focuses more in building connection, and promoting friendly interaction within team members, motivates them with praise and recognition. The affiliative leader places less emphasis on direction, goals and standards than meeting employees emotional needs.
Advantage
When a company aims to earn the employees‘ trust, affiliative leadership is the way to go. The Affiliative leader values and recognizes every employee’s role. He or she always gives positive feedback which makes employees happy. The affiliative leader makes the employees believe that the company belongs to them as well as to their leader. And employees tend to last longer in workplaces where they feel that the leader likes them and does not show every time that he or she is the boss. And employees tend to last longer in workplaces where they feel that the leader likes them and does not show every time that he or she is the boss. An Affiliate leader creates a non-stress workplace climate.
Disadvantage
Making positive feedback is good but focusing on mentioning only positive aspects of an employee’s work and leaving aside the negative ones for a long run can drown a company. There will always be something to improve and an affiliative leader does not focus on raising those points. Affiliative leadership also favores a non-stress and non-pressure workplace climate, and some employees may also take advantage of it and get stuck in their comfort zone. And this may lead to a mediocre performance of the employees.
The affiliative style is for sure the most liked one by employees because it creates an enjoyable workplace climate. However, in the long run it favors laxity within the company and decreases the team productivity.
Related articles
Coercive Leadership Style,
Authoritative Leadership Style,
Democratic Leadership Style,
Pacesetting Leadership Style,
Coaching Leadership Style.
