Three Components You Need To Create Secure Relationships at Work And Help Your Team Thrive

Do you feel safe at work? Do you have secure relationships that make you feel seen, heard, valued, and excited about the work you do?

At EmC Leaders, we use the work of John Bowlby, who is the founder and father of the Attachment Theory. We also use the work of Mario Mikulincer, who writes a lot about attachment in the workplace and adult relationships.

According to them, there are three components to creating secure relationships, and that was one of the topics we explored more deeply in episode 24 of The Leader in You Podcast.

1. A Target: The Bigger, Stronger, Wiser, Kinder Person

We need to have a target. A person in our lives we can reach out to in vulnerable moments.?

Someone that we can turn to when that emotion in us is activated. And that someone is what they refer to as the bigger, stronger, wiser, and kinder. At work, that’s often our manager.

That’s why switching managers too often may create an insecure attachment between team members as they are unable to feel secure in a relationship that is constantly changing.

This can start to reduce their self-confidence and their sense of self.?

When people don't have that stronger, wiser, kinder person that they can reach out to, they become anxious. They doubt their productivity, they doubt what they're doing, and it's very difficult for them to thrive at work.

2. A Safe Haven

The second component is that we have to have a safe haven in that bonded relationship with that attachment figure.

What does that mean??

Let's say you're my manager, having a safe haven would make me feel safe to come to you.?

Number one would be to have you there, a person who is “bigger, stronger, wiser, and kinder.” Then, number two, is for me to actually feel safe to reach out when I have an issue or problem, or when I make a mistake.

If you have a problem, I want you to come to me, and feel safe to do that. That is a safe haven.?

3. A Secure Base: A Secure Relationship

And the third thing that you need is a secure relationship, it's called a “secure base.” That means that when I'm dysregulated, when I'm stressed and I come to you, you help me to regain my balance.

I have a secure base.?

Meetings for instance. They are (or should be) a calibration of your emotions.

When you go into a meeting with your team, you want to be able to express what's happened to you, how that impacted you, and know that the people will be there to help you regulate, or better yet, co-regulate your emotions.?

Because in the workplace, we are co-regulators of each other's emotions.

We look forward to our peers – and especially our manager – helping us to regain our balance in a way that makes us feel safe and secure. So we’re ready to move on.?

There are two types of meetings...

And I’m sure you’ve probably experienced both:

1. Meetings that make you feel energized and excited for what’s to come. The team is united and everyone is clear on what they need.
2. Meetings that make you feel completely lost or depleted. Almost like all your energy had been sucked out of you.?

And that’s the easiest way to illustrate insecure relationships and secure relationships at work.?

Or in other words, insecure attachment, and secure attachment.

What kind of meetings have you been having lately?

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