Attachment Styles in the Workplace: How They Help or Hinder
Attachment styles in the workplace aren’t something many of us consider. Yet while attachment theory can help us better understand our emotional lives and romantic relationships as adults, it also plays a valuable role in building awareness of how we act in the workplace.
Our jobs are a significant part of our lives. They’re where we spend most of our time outside of the home and typically form a big part of our identities. Since attachment comes up in the ways we relate to our emotional needs and act in relationships, it’s not unreasonable to think they impact our work dynamics too.
There are many aspects of work that can trigger our attachment styles, regardless of what industry we work in. This article explores attachment theory at work to help explain why we might have certain challenges or strengths by exploring:
- The four attachment styles
- Common workplace triggers for insecure attachment styles
- How each attachment style could drive certain behaviors at work
- Ways attachment issues can be overcome
Attachment Theory at Work: A Quick Overview of Attachment Styles
Attachment theory looks at the emotional connections between children and caregivers, and the lasting impact these have on our emotional lives and relationships in adulthood.
In the 1970s, Mary Ainsworth observed parents and their young children in a series of experiments and identified three “styles” of attachment. These were secure, avoidant, and anxious, with the disorganized style being identified later.1 So, what do these attachment styles look like, and what type of caregiving causes them?
- Secure attachment is created when caregivers are consistently quick and sensitive in responding to their children’s needs. In adulthood, a securely attached person will have healthy self-confidence, be emotionally available, and believe close relationships will successfully meet their needs.2
- Anxious attachment (known as “anxious-preoccupied” in adulthood) is caused by caregivers who sometimes meet their children’s needs sensitively but sometimes reject them. Adults with this style typically fear rejection, feel unworthy of love, and depend on others for reassurance.2
- Avoidant attachment (known as “avoidant-dismissive” in adulthood) is created when a caregiver is distant, rejecting, or disengaged from their child’s emotional needs. In adulthood, avoidance typically compels people to devalue intimacy. Someone with this attachment style may go to great lengths to be self-sufficient and avoid vulnerability.2
- Disorganized attachment (known as “fearful-avoidant” in adulthood) is caused by caregivers acting inconsistently and chaotically towards their child’s needs. Disorganized children may be frightened of their caregivers, but look to them for security nonetheless. This conflicting style results in adults exhibiting both anxious and avoidant tendencies.2
You can read about how attachment styles impact mental health and relationships in more detail from our other articles on this topic (linked above). Next, we’ll explore how attachment plays out in the workplace.
Attachment Triggers In The Workplace
Regardless of the type of work you do, there are many aspects of working life that are unavoidable and could act as potential triggers for your attachment style. For example:
- Authority figures: Having to answer to someone at work can feel uncomfortable and might bring up feelings like fear, powerlessness, low self-esteem, and rebellion, to name a few. While avoidantly attached people may be preoccupied by a need for autonomy, anxiously attached people may be excessively eager to please their superiors.
- Criticism and disagreement: Even the most constructive and fair criticism can be intensely uncomfortable for insecurely attached individuals. For example, while someone with avoidant attachment may be resistant to feedback, anxiously attached people might take criticism extremely personally.4
- Group dynamics: Groups can trigger relational wounds, causing avoidant team members to feel overwhelmed and withdraw. Therefore, they might prefer to work independently. Anxiously attached team members may be highly sensitive to perceived exclusion or rejection and seek a sense of belonging from the group.
- Deadlines and responsibilities: If a workload becomes too great and people feel pressure on their performance, it can trigger attachment insecurity. While anxious people may feel immense pressure to prove their worthiness, avoidant people might fail to seek help with deadlines when they need it.
- Leadership: If a role requires someone to assume leadership over a team or project, this can cause a range of complicated feelings. Depending on attachment style, leadership styles may differ. For instance, anxiously attached leaders may lack the confidence and independence they need to fully embody their role confidently. Meanwhile, avoidant leaders may give their team too much space and be perceived as unavailable.
We’ll now explore each attachment style in the workplace in more detail.
Anxious Attachment at Work
As we’ve established, people with an anxious attachment style can struggle with feelings of unworthiness and look to others for approval and reassurance.
Feeling in such ways at work can cause someone to worry about their performance and professional relationships. For example, they may feel insecure about their skills or productivity and constantly criticize themselves. They might also seek approval from their managers or coworkers, wish to be liked by everyone, and be hard on themselves when receiving negative feedback.4
However, an anxious attachment style isn’t all bad for team dynamics and productivity. Despite its challenges, anxious attachment may drive people to constantly improve their skills, making them better at their jobs.
Though they’re more likely to conform to a group, their agreeableness means they’ll create less friction within teams. And if they’re very sensitive to other people and their environment, anxiously attached people could be great at detecting threats and risks.4
So, while anxious attachment can cause a lot of discomfort, people with this style should recognize that their unique qualities make them valuable in unique ways to their colleagues.
Avoidant Attachment at Work
The challenges faced by avoidantly attached people usually relate to vulnerability and autonomy. One of the most typical ways avoidance will show up at work is when someone is reluctant to share their feelings, concerns, and weaknesses with their colleagues and superiors.
This might mean they don’t ask for assistance with a task even when they’d benefit from it, making their job (and the flow of parallel projects) harder. They may also be resistant to collaboration, preferring to work alone, and be less agreeable in group projects.
Further, avoidantly attached team members might stay on the sidelines of work socials, refraining from optional events – keeping work at work.4 This may come down to how they struggle to trust others and don’t believe it to be “safe” to open up. Any workplace friendships will be a slow-burn, and colleagues may feel they don’t know the avoidant person very well.
Nevertheless, people with avoidant tendencies often work alone very efficiently. They typically don’t need to be closely managed because their self-reliance acts as their internal management.
Disorganized Attachment at Work
The behaviors of those with a disorganized attachment style can be a little harder to pin down. This is because they often exhibit a mixture of anxious and avoidant traits depending on their experiences and circumstances. As a result, colleagues of people with disorganized attachment might find them to be unpredictable or contradictory. Yet, inside, these people are battling two conflicting desires – to feel close and to feel safe.
These conflicting needs can cause someone to sometimes be highly anxious and other times be highly avoidant. They may be more sensitive to stress and criticism, struggle to trust their superiors and coworkers, have low self-esteem about their skill set, and seek both reassurance and independence.
However, regardless of their emotional lives and relationship patterns, people with disorganized attachment can still be highly skilled in their careers. For instance, they may exhibit the positives of both the anxious and avoidant styles in their striving for self-improvement and ability to work alone.
Secure Attachment at Work
Those who are securely attached are more comfortable with vulnerability, making them more likely to ask for help when they need it and offer support to others. Since they have a healthy sense of confidence, they’ll also take feedback and criticism more easily and view mistakes as lessons.3
If they experience workplace conflicts, people with secure attachment are likely to resolve things smoothly. This is because, even under stress, they’re typically able to think, feel, and behave constructively.3
Compared to people who are insecurely attached, they are less likely to struggle with assuming a leadership role, managing a stressful workload, speaking with authority figures, and collaborating in groups. Further, attachment security enables people to maintain professional boundaries more easily and even struggle less with their physical and mental health.4
So, to sum it up, securely attached people are by no means “better” than others; they just usually have an easier time managing their emotions and relationships. With these benefits in mind, how can someone cultivate more attachment security and feel better at work?
Resolving Attachment Issues at Work
Insecure attachment patterns may lead to more work stress, but that doesn’t mean people can’t heal and overcome their personal challenges.
If you have an insecure attachment style and the issues discussed in this article resonate with you, you might benefit from therapy specifically for workplace relationship issues. Or, it could be that you seek therapy to increase your confidence or ability to handle constructive criticism.
Looking into these options doesn’t mean you’re not a valuable employee; it’s brave and healthy to seek support when you recognize you have specific difficulties. Also, if you’re aware that your triggers stem from your attachment style, you can search for attachment-informed workplace coaching. These types of therapy and coaching tend to focus on:
- Your relationship patterns
- How you cope with stress
- How you handle interpersonal conflicts
- Your core beliefs about things like self-worth, vulnerability, and productivity
- Your career goals
- Specific instances of difficulty at work
With their empathetic, non-judgmental approach and knowledge about attachment styles, a therapist or coach can help you unpack workplace triggers and develop new ways of responding to difficult situations.
How Can Employers Foster a Supportive Work Environment?
Before employers rush to figure out how they can make each and every team member more secure in the workplace, they should know that having a mix of attachment traits could be a positive thing. For instance, research into team dynamics finds that having a mixture of attachment anxiety and avoidance improves team functioning (that is, if there’s good team cohesion).5
So, when trying to improve a work environment, leaders should aim to foster more team cohesion. This way, workplace conflict will have less to do with something as personal and deeply rooted as attachment style, and more to do with things managers can control.
Additionally, employers and managers who want to improve workplace relationships and productivity may benefit from reflecting on their own attachment styles first. By doing so, they’ll be more aware of their biases and better at discerning workplace dynamics more accurately.4
Managers should also try to foster open communication, using active listening when people share their feelings and concerns. Courses on empathetic leadership are another option, as they can help employers understand that employees are often influenced by personal and historical factors beyond what’s happening in the present context.
Mission Connection: Get Attachment Support Today
Managing attachment issues at work doesn’t have to be a solo effort. At Mission Connection, we offer a range of therapies to help you identify where attachment insecurity comes from and how it’s impacting your work. Our team can also help you reach a place of attachment security, changing deep-rooted core beliefs and fostering a healthier working model of relationships and self.
Get in touch today if you’re interested in hearing about our treatment options.
References
- Cassidy, J., Jones, J. D., & Shaver, P. R. (2013). Contributions of attachment theory and research: A framework for future research, translation, and policy. Development and Psychopathology, 25(4pt2), 1415–1434. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579413000692
- Santoro, G., Costanzo, A., Franceschini, C., Lenzo, V., Musetti, A., & Schimmenti, A. (2024). Insecure Minds through the Looking Glass: The Mediating Role of Mentalization in the Relationships between Adult Attachment Styles and Problematic Social Media Use. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(3), 255. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21030255
- Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 19–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006
- Leiter, M. P., Day, A., & Price, L. (2015). Attachment styles at work: Measurement, collegial relationships, and burnout. Burnout Research, 2(1), 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burn.2015.02.003
- Lavy, S., Bareli, Y., & Ein-Dor, T. (2014). The Effects of Attachment Heterogeneity and Team Cohesion on Team Functioning. Small Group Research, 46(1), 27–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496414553854
