What If Your Workplace Attachment Style Is Why You’re Burnt Out?
Most of us find attachment theory through pain.
Usually somewhere between trying to hold on to someone who’s pulling away or being overwhelmed by someone who seems to need more than we can give. That’s how I found it too, through a relationship that didn’t make sense until I learned there were styles to how we connect, disconnect, and try to stay close.
At first, I thought attachment styles were only about love.
But the more I learned, the more I saw how they shaped everything.
Not just my romantic life, but my work life.
Especially my relationship with leaders.
Because attachment isn’t just about who we love.
It’s about who we seek approval from.
Who we shape ourselves for.
Who we quietly hope will see us and say, “You’re safe here.”
The Theory We Don’t Talk About at Work
Attachment theory started as a way to understand how children bond with their caregivers. But over time, it became clear these patterns don’t disappear when we grow up. They just get more subtle.
There are people who navigate relationships with relative ease. They trust easily, ask for what they need, and don’t crumble under silence. Others constantly monitor the emotional climate around them, over-explain themselves, or feel rejection even when nothing’s been said. Some seem allergic to closeness, pulling away when things get too personal or emotionally charged. And some feel both at once - craving intimacy and fearing it, never quite settling.
We name these styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant.
But we rarely name them in the workplace.
We should.
Because leadership isn’t just hierarchy.
It’s attachment.
It’s who we believe will catch us when we make a mistake.
Who we perform for. Who we fear disappointing.
And how safe we feel being seen as we really are.
My Pattern, in Practice
Looking back, I now know I’ve carried an anxious-preoccupied attachment style into many of my most important work relationships. Especially with bosses I admired. I didn’t see it at the time, I thought I was just passionate, loyal, deeply committed. And I was. But I was also always scanning the room for emotional cues. I needed to feel understood, not just on a strategic level, but emotionally. I wanted to be got. And when I wasn’t, I over-explained. I over-delivered. I tied my sense of safety at work to how “in sync” I felt with the person above me.
That pattern eventually led me to burnout. Not because someone broke me, but because I was constantly trying to earn emotional alignment in a place where that wasn’t the currency.
The truth is, I wasn’t just working for the company.
I was working for a sense of acceptance.
And that’s too high a price.
Moving Toward Secure (But Not There Yet)
I’m not writing this from a place of having it all figured out. I’m still learning. Still noticing when my own patterns rise, when I start to over-explain, when silence feels like rejection, when I reach for reassurance instead of grounding myself.
But now, I catch it.
Not always, not perfectly, but more often than before.
And that awareness changes everything.
Because once you see the pattern, you have a chance to choose differently.
That’s what it means to move toward secure.
Not to be untouched by emotion, but to be able to stay with yourself in it.
To remain in connection without dissolving.
To respond, rather than react.
The First Step Isn’t Leading Others. It’s Seeing Yourself
Attachment theory gives us a language for what many of us have always felt but couldn’t name.
It helps us understand why some work dynamics feel so personal, why certain leaders leave a lasting mark, and why we sometimes exhaust ourselves in the pursuit of being “enough.”
But the real shift begins not in understanding others, but in understanding ourselves.
And maybe the first practice is this:
When you feel activated - tense, withdrawn, over-involved, misunderstood - pause and ask, “Is this my conscious mind responding… or has fear taken the wheel?”
That small pause creates space.
And in that space, there’s the possibility to choose something new.
Because the path to secure isn’t about becoming perfect.
It starts with becoming aware, and gently leading yourself forward, one choice at a time.
About the photo
Taken in West Estonia, while walking within the ruins of an old castle. I stopped by what used to be a window and looked out. Even when the structure is broken, the view from within can still be captivating. Sometimes the clearest perspective comes exactly from the place that no longer holds.