By Vuslat Serenay Arı Şafak
After years of one-to-ones, performance evaluations and conversations about team conflict, I have come to pay close attention to how safe people feel with each other. Performance reviews and job descriptions tell us part of the story. Everyday interactions reveal how people respond when they need help, receive difficult feedback or face uncertainty.
Attachment theory offers one way to think about those responses. It can help a leader ask more useful questions about trust and support in a team.
How attachment theory relates to work
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth studied the bonds children form with their caregivers. Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver later applied attachment theory to adult relationships and explored its relevance to work. Research on adult attachment describes how expectations about the availability of support can influence relationships, including those with colleagues.
When pressure rises at work, those expectations can become easier to see. One person asks for help readily. Another looks for repeated reassurance. Someone else withdraws and tries to handle everything alone.
These patterns can guide a conversation, but they cannot tell us a colleague’s history or establish a diagnosis.
Secure collaborators
People with a more secure attachment pattern tend to be comfortable relying on others. They can ask for help when a deadline gets tight and are more able to take feedback without reading it as a threat to the relationship.
That comfort can make collaboration easier during change. There is less need to spend energy checking whether support will still be available.
Feedback seekers
An anxious attachment pattern can make uncertainty particularly difficult. A colleague may care deeply about doing a good job yet need frequent reassurance that their work, or their place in the team, is secure.
When direction is unclear, gaps in communication can become a source of worry. Predictable feedback and clear expectations give that person fewer gaps to fill on their own.
Solitary solvers
An avoidant attachment pattern can show up as a strong preference for independence. A colleague may keep their distance and try to solve a difficult problem alone, even when help is available.
Independence can be useful, but it can also leave someone carrying more than they need to. A manager should pay attention to workload and make support available without treating autonomy as a problem.
Patterns can change
It is tempting to treat these descriptions as fixed personalities. Attachment patterns can change, and the way someone behaves also depends on the situation. Self-awareness, supportive relationships and opportunities for open conversation can help people become more comfortable with trust and support.
The aim is to understand what helps a colleague work well. Assigning everyone a label would narrow that understanding.
What leaders can do
Make feedback predictable. Agree on regular check-ins and explain what good work looks like. Someone who struggles with uncertainty should not have to guess when they will hear from their manager.
Respect autonomy while staying available. Check whether a colleague has the resources and support they need, especially when they tend to take on problems alone.
Build psychological safety through everyday responses. When someone admits a mistake or challenges an assumption, listen and work through it with them. People learn whether it is safe to speak by watching what happens after they do.
Pay attention to the relationship as well as the task. Feeling disconnected from leadership can affect whether someone wants to stay. Managers have regular opportunities to help colleagues feel heard and part of the team.
Our needs for trust and support come to work with us. A useful place to start is the next one-to-one: ask what helps that person feel supported, and listen to the answer before deciding what they need.
More about our culture
Read about People & Culture at Solvoyo and how we work together.
