Attachment styles, trust and burnout prevention

Trust is key to relationships and healthy work cultures.

Trust is the heartbeat of all meaningful relationships. When we feel trusted and trust others, it creates a sense of safety and belonging that drives connection, innovation, and collaboration. We feel able to be our authentic selves and share openly, which underpins psychological safety and belonging.

To me, without trust, there is no love — and in the workplace, no meaningful innovation, collaboration or growth.

Trust has been described as being able to have “a confident relationship with the unknown”. Others consider trust to be ‘life glue’. Some contend that it’s an inherently interpersonal experience. We might talk about trust in governments or organizations (or more likely a lack thereof), but when it comes down to it, trust is about people. And like many great aspects of interpersonal relationships, it takes time to nurture — and be wiped out in seconds.

How can we build trust?

Building trust is not a switch we flick and boom we’re trusted. We can’t simply say “trust me” and expect that people will do so: for me, someone uttering these words generally inspires more skepticism than anything.

Trust is formed from healthy relational behaviors including transparency, reliability, candor, empathy, curiosity, and non-judgment. These behaviors need to be consistent, and not contingent on outside circumstances. For example: if a leader is understanding and encouraging when waters are calm, but controlling and unhinged when things get stormy, trust is undermined. When it comes to trust, and burnout prevention, consistency is key.

Understanding how to build and nurture trust — and the longer term, consistent effort that this entails — is essential for building healthier, more vibrant, authentic and meaningful connections in our lives at work and beyond.

One lens for understanding how to foster stronger trust is through attachment styles. Indeed, research in developmental psychology and organizational behavior consistently shows that early attachment experiences influence adult interpersonal trust. So what’s the connection?

What are attachment styles?

Attachment styles are patterns of how we as humans connect and relate to others based on early experiences with caregivers. Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, and there are four main styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised.

• Secure attachment develops from consistent, nurturing care, fostering trust, confidence, and healthy relationships.

• Anxious attachment often stems from inconsistent caregiving, leading to a craving for closeness and fear of abandonment.

• Avoidant attachment results from distant or unresponsive care, encouraging independence but may hinder emotional intimacy.

• Disorganised attachment is linked to unpredictable or traumatic experiences, causing confusion and difficulty trusting others.

Studies show that secure attachment correlates with higher levels of trust and openness, while insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, disorganized) are associated with difficulties in trusting others and forming close relationships.

This makes sense: when our early experience of the world is founded on consistency, confidence and healthy relationships, it’s no wonder that trust becomes a more natural tendency. In contrast, when care in early life is inconsistent, distant or unpredictable, it makes sense that it’s more difficult for us to trust others and form close relationships as adults.

As someone who entered adulthood with a blend of insecure attachment styles, it’s had a significant impact on my relationships at work. In some ways, I wonder if this attachment style made me ideally poised to navigate the antagonistic, cutthroat world of corporate finance law. In the law firm environment of low trust, low support and low psychological safety, I felt weirdly at home. Perhaps burnout was — at least in part — my soul’s way of saying “no more” to this kind of work environment.

Thankfully, it is possible to learn to shift from insecure attachment styles to secure attachment. Today, I have amazing friendships and working relationships in which I feel securely attached. They form safe spaces where my nervous system can be at ease and I feel comfortable to fumble and make mistakes, safe in the knowledge that I’ll be accepted nonetheless. Shifting towards secure attachment has taken — and still takes — concerted effort. It requires vigilant self-awareness, curiosity, self-compassion and courage. I don’t always get it right.

What I’ve found is that understanding my own attachment style, and that it might be different from others, helps me be more empathetic, emotionally intelligent and to form stronger connections — and stronger bonds of trust.

How can understanding our attachment style help us build trust and prevent burnout?

It’s helpful to understand what kind of attachment style we have ourselves: recognizing your attachment style is a valuable step toward nurturing stronger, more authentic relationships in both personal and professional spheres. It helps you understand when you might be triggered by certain behaviors or situations.

And it’s also helpful to shine the light outwards, too, and understand that others might have different attachment styles and therefore different relational patterns and needs. You don’t need to diagnose anyone or be an armchair psychologist — in fact, quite the opposite. It’s about bringing an empathetic, openminded and openhearted approach in which you are receptive to others despite the differences, whatever they might be.

Understanding the variations in attachment styles helps us cultivate healthier connections founded on trust. Here’s how you can use this understanding to foster trust and inclusion:

1. Build Psychological Safety:

Fostering psychological safety — a belief that you can express ideas and concerns without fear of negative consequences — requires us to demonstrate reliability, consistency, and empathy. These behaviors promote secure attachment behaviors, encouraging people to develop trust in you.

2. Model Trustworthy Behavior:

When you act with transparency, integrity, and consistency, you reinforce trust-building cues that are linked with secure attachment styles. These kinds of behaviors can act as a kind of a safe haven for others, especially those with insecure attachment tendencies.

3. Bring Empathy and Patience:

Recognizing that some people may have attachment-related trust issues allows you to tailor support and approach. You might consider offering more reassurance, providing deeper context and clarity, and more consciously fostering open communication. This requires empathy and patience, particularly for those who have secure attachment tendencies and struggle to relate to insecure attachment styles. However, the effort pays off in higher levels of trust.

4. Be Consistent and Reliable:

Consistency in structures, feedback, and interactions helps people with anxious attachment feel more secure. Not cancelling meetings at the last minute is a good example: yes, we all love a cancelled meeting, but when you’ve planned your day around it this can come as a blow, particularly to those with insecure attachment styles.

5. Stay Curious:

Through educating leaders about the different attachment styles and their implications for trust, you enhance emotional intelligence, empathy, and conflict resolution skills, leading to stronger, trust-based relationships. This is not about leaders having to solve their people’s issues: it’s about seeing that we all have our own patterns and lenses that influence how we interact, and ensuring these diverse experiences are included.

Understanding and being open to different attachment styles enables us to deepen the trust we all need for healthy, robust and lasting relationships. In the workplace, it helps us foster cultures of belonging, engagement and collaboration.

And more broadly, it helps us better understand ourselves, each other and the world at large.