Paying Attention to Attachment Styles in the New Hybrid Workplace

When Glenn Jacobs (not his real name) read the email that his company sent, requiring all employees to returning to the office next month (albeit on a three-days-per-week schedule), many thoughts went through his mind. He had become comfortable with his routine over the past year, waking up in the morning, doing a brief workout, having breakfast, and then sitting down in his home office chair and getting ready for a day’s worth of Zoom meetings. At the end of the workday (and between meetings during the day), he would check emails and take short breaks to chat with his partner, who was in another room and also working remotely.

Going back to the office? He was not sure this was such a good thing for him anymore. Glenn is a Vice President at a major financial services firm in a big city. During the past year, he has held weekly team meetings and one-on-one meetings with each of his seven direct reports – all virtually. He has also participated in meetings with his peers and has had regular individual meetings with his direct boss. In addition, he has participated in meetings with the different committees he has been on as well as met virtually with some key customers. Now going back to the office would mean, among other things, having to do some of the unpleasant interactions he had avoided doing when working remotely – such as dealing with under-performing team members, having to interact with some senior management “jerks,” playing politics, and enduring those long commutes.

Understandably, managers like Glenn have been showing some anxiety about returning to work. In fact, there is evidence that anxiety levels have increased during the pandemic. As reported in the Wall Street Journal (April 1. 2021), “… data compiled in December by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics found that more than 4 in 10 U.S. adults had developed symptoms of depression or anxiety by the end of 2020, a sharp increase over the results of a comparable survey conducted in the first half of 2019.”

For those managers who tip toward being anxious, this period of uncertainty (when are we going back to “normal?”, what will this mean?, I got used to my routine and now have to adjust all over again?) seems to be raising their anxiety levels even more.

Many years ago, the psychologist John Bowlby (1990) proposed that all of us have an inborn tendency to make and sustain relationships with significant others. The bonds that infants develop with their mothers form the template for how individuals tend to relate to others in the future. Bowlby and others identified four basic attachment styles that we all have based on these early bonds: secure, insecure/preoccupied, insecure/dismissing and insecure/fearful. Here’s a brief description of these four styles as summarized by Hudson (2013):

·     Secure leaders tend to be confident in oneself and others, work well autonomously or in groups, and provide assistance and aid to those in need.

·     Insecure/preoccupied leaders are fulfilled only when others care about them; they have generally low levels of trust while having a high need for acceptance.

·     Insecure/dismissing leaders are overly self-reliant, believe that achievement is more important and more rewarding than relationships, and are inflexible in their problem-solving and coping strategies.

·     Insecure/fearful leaders are highly sensitive to rejection and criticism, tend to mistrust others and avoid closeness and intimacy.

 In my experience having worked with hundreds of managers, helping them have a deeper understanding of their own attachment style is crucial to their development as effective leaders. I would note that that most effective leaders tend to be secure. However, in times of stress, one of these insecure attachment styles can jump to the forefront:

“… Stressful situations activate the physiological systems related to attachment; the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is sensitive to attachment processes because it responds to situations that evoke social-evaluative threat, is sensitive to interpersonal situations, and shows individual variation in response to interpersonal relations.” (Wagerman et al., page 2).

Glenn’s company is not alone; some CEOs (e.g., JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs) have already been laying the groundwork for their employees to return to the office. And Facebook, who announced last year that it planned to let employees work remotely on a permanent basis, just signed a lease for 730,000 square feet of new office space. Eventually, whether offices will be hybrid workplaces or fully on-site, there is no question that organizations will require some employees to be at the office on certain days.

 As workers return to this hybrid workplace, here are three short pieces of advice for leaders who may be feeling anxious themselves. One, be aware of your own attachment style as well as your team members’ attachment styles. It’s very likely that many of them will have some anxiety about going back to the office.

Two, working on three day-to-day behaviors while in this new hybrid workplace will make a big difference in reducing your team members’ anxiety and building their motivation and productivity. These three “micro-behaviors” include: showing concern (e.g., ask how they are doing, ask how you can help, ask for feedback), listening effectively (e.g., check for understanding, ask questions to understand their concerns, give them your undivided attention when you are interacting with them), and being flexible (e.g., give permission for team members who might have to leave early some days, do not stick to rigid meeting schedules, consider “meeting-free” Fridays).

Being flexible extends to yourself as well. Managers who have developed a flexible mindset also tend to be more resilient – an important characteristic for managers to have these days. Take some steps to improve your resilience by, for example, stepping out of your comfort zone once in a while, and pushing yourself to do one thing every day that you are not used to doing. 

Three, keep in mind why you are a leader – it’s to give your team inspiration and direction; they will need you to do this more than ever in the coming months. Here’s something I have learned in talking to managers over the past month: they feel so much more energized and motivated themselves after their face-to-face interactions with team members and colleagues. A manager I spoke to who has just gone back to the office three days a week said that the bonding that emerged after just a day at work was very exhilarating for everyone. That is certainly something to look forward to as team members start getting back to the workplace.

Although we often associate the term “caregivers” to those providing help for those who are sick or for others who cannot take care of themselves, a leader is a type of caregiver. And leaders who, through their behaviors, show that they care are more likely to win the hearts and minds of their team members.

Bowlby, J. (1990). A Secure Base. New York: Basic Books.

Hudson, D. (2013). Attachment Theory and Leader-Follower Relationships. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 16 (3), 147-159.

Wagerman, S. et al. (2021). Psychodynamic and Sociopolitical Predictors of COVID Distress and Gravity. Personality and Individual Differences, 171, 1-8.