Managing the Anxious Attachment Style
People who work together closely often form emotional bonds similar to those in familial relationships.
How they connect or attach to others, including peers and teammates, has received a lot of research attention. Attachment styles refer to the way individuals find affinity with others and create depth in their relationships.
The research consensus is that attachment styles are shaped primarily in early childhood from experiences with caregivers and parents.
According to Attachment Theory, how safe, consistent, and emotionally responsive caregivers were, creates a template for how people approach relationships as adults.
Attachment styles range from being secure with intimacy and independence to those who distance themselves emotionally from others.
A common issue on teams is one or more members who possess an anxious attachment style and display a deep insecurity about how others perceive them.
These team members have a constant need for approval and reassurance, seek feedback but interpret constructive criticism as a personal rejection, fixate on being liked and accepted, and struggle to say “no” to requests because they want to be accepted.
Their inability to say “no” means they typically take on too much work, leave tasks unfinished, yet refuse to ask for help. All because they want to be seen as fitting in and performing well.
Team members with this dysfunctional attachment style are extremely high-maintenance for leaders.
Leaders who attempt to reassure these team members and offer emotional support soon find the task is endless. No amount of praise, positive feedback, or encouragement can rid them of their insecurities.
An anxious attachment style is rarely pacified through increased attention.
Leaders faced with managing a team member with this style must be clear in their communication and ask that they maintain a consistent set of short-term goals and milestones. Regular check-ins to gauge their process are essential.
Good leaders insist they follow through with tasks and assignments and make keeping their promises a central plank in their discussions with them.
By avoiding ambiguity and expressing confidence in their abilities, leaders can help those with this style to cope with their insecurities.
For those team members who are “needy” and want more of the leader’s time than is plausible, clear boundaries must be set and never crossed.
This sounds cruel, but it actually creates structure for the afflicted party to find their own discipline about seeking unnecessary validation.
Withholding candid feedback because of their possible reaction is never a good idea, nor is saving it up until it can be dumped all at once to get it over with.
The more a leader treats this anxious attachment style team member in the same way they do others, the sooner everyone can establish whether this arrangement can work long-term.
As with everyone else, learning how to live with insecurity is the only true security.
Thank you for this insightful article.
My most recent experience has thought me that managing the Anxious Attachment Style employee is very challenging and draining not only to the management but also to the person’s peers and colleagues.
Their constant need for attention and approval, and placing focus on external validation instead of sufficient task completion quite often causes them to sabotage the team’s performance and create a resentment. The team’s empathetic efforts to mentor and support them are met with suspicion, defensiveness and even hostile behaviour.
Based on my personal experience and observations, it is crucial for the management to identify this challenging trait and address it early on, employing emotional intelligence and very firm, unquestionable and enforceable boundaries.
Leadership is about managing people, and that's why leaders must be extra careful of who they let into their circle. It is a leaders' duty to fill his ranks with those who display competence and ethics; not those with ulterior motives or who require baby-sitting.
This may sound harsh, but you cannot allow a single individual (or a few) to completely sabotage the team's momentum, and drain precious resources. If a member of your team is not up to par, limit the responsibilities assigned to them, and try to keep them productive. But if they continue to drain your time, energy, and pull back the team, then it's time to let them go.
This isn't the feel-good message that is commonly available for those interested in leadership, and this may be hard to swallow. But it's better to part ways with an insecure personality once you've exhausted avenues directed at helping them.
Personally, I think that leaders must first become masters of human psychology in order to avoid bringing the wrong people into their teams, and also to help those with insecurities already within the team.