Attachment Science & Leadership

Welcome to the Leading Edge Podcast, transforming your leadership with attachment science. Wear your host, Dr. James Hawkins, and Dr. Ryan Reina. Together, we want to transform your leadership by sharing principles from attachment science to put you on the leading edge of leadership. Welcome back to the Leading Edge Podcast, transforming leadership through attachment science. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about what is attachment science and what does it have to do with leadership. Ryan, those are two terms that I don't typically hear, talked about together. And so, can you help flesh that out some more? Like, what does attachment science have to do with leadership? A lot, a lot, and I didn't hear it very often either. And to some degree, I came about this by accident. But, you know, attachment theory is a theory that's been around since 1940. The original author was named John Bulby, and he was studying how mother child interaction affects this child's behavior, even what we would think of as this child's personality. Since then, it's huge. It's blown up. It's a huge concept in the 2000s. I know the US military is fully on board with attachment science, attachment theory, sometimes called. Other people refer to it as bonding science, I don't know where to say the same thing. But one distinction I want to make off the top here is we're not talking about mother child here. We're not even talking about, you know, the people you lead, family history, though that is relevant. It's not what we're going for here. In about the mid 80s, early 90s, we started, people started taking Bulby's theory and applying it to adults, which has really become its own science, adult attachment, credit to three people really fast, feel shaver, Mario, Michael, answer, and Sue Johnson, one of our mentors and one of the best psychologists in the world. These folks have taken and studied attachment applied to adults and adult behavior. So coming back and getting a little more specific here, back to Bulby, John Bulby, psychologist, British psychologist, when we're talking about attachment, what we're talking about is motivation. Like what motivates human behavior? To be an effective leader, you have to know what's motivating your people. If you lose contact with what's motivating your people, nothing else really matters. You can do all kinds of things well, you can be a great content leader, you can be a great process leader, you can be a great motivator, speaker, communicator, all the things that we think of with leadership. But if you lose touch with what's motivating them, you lose people and you can't get the best out of them. So one more specific thing here, Bulby's original theory talked about what he called the five behavioral systems, the five behavioral systems, and I want to go over him really quickly. The first one is attachment and attachment is about what people do in the face of distress. So Bulby would say species survive because of attachment. It's this process of how the body takes into stress and how it moves towards closeness, how it moves into attunement or synchrony with others as a way to survive. It's a oversimplified, but I think a decent description of attachment. The second system is what he called the exploratory system. So these two are kind of antithetical to each other. When attachment attachment is really online in the face of a threat. So as a leader, when your company or your organization, your group is facing a threat, that is an attachment event. When the threat is taken away, when there's security and safety, the first thing that happens is the second system, the exploratory system comes online. Those are the fun days where people are curious, creative, flexible. It's a wonderful day when your organization or team has the exploratory system flowing. The third system was kind of an extension of the exploratory system called the sexual system, not so directly related to leadership, but I thought I'd throw that out there. The next two definitely are the fourth system from Bulby. He called the caregiving system. And what he's referring to actually is rules, limits, structure that how care is being conveyed with potentially strength or boundaries or a push sometimes, that kind of motivation. The fifth one is a big part of leadership as well. Bulby would say that humans naturally have a failure system, a desire and a longing to be a part of something greater than themselves. You see people lose their minds at a college football game and you start to go, what's motivating this and that's that failure system. So within those five systems, we're going to sort of draw out over the next several episodes, sort of two forces here out of that. You want to comment on those James? Are you good? The two forces? Well, these, man, when you're saying these right and you went down those five, I'm thinking for me as a leader, which you just gave me as a gift, because I can take that and as I'm planning and thinking, I could be looking at those and saying, how am I doing in my organization on each of these systems? Particularly, you think about some of these systems and they really are what we want when you think about some of the innovative companies such as Apple and Google. If they could, if they get safety online for their people and their people are not worried about, you know, whatever the issue is, you know, just unhealthy in the culture, they can do explore track things and they can push the boundaries of creativity and production. Also, that part about the failure part about the sense of being a part of something bigger. It's like, now it's not just about money and incentive programs in that way, it's, hey, I love being here. I was listening to a guy who's a leadership expert and he was talking and he just was at a resort. He asked the guy, like, what do you like? Do you like your job? He says, I love being here. I love being here. And he was just a service level person, but he's like, I love this company. And he was working in his production show today. So I think this is a real gift that you give me someone tangible about attachment science, meaning it has been thoroughly proven that these things motivate people's behavior. And that helps companies be more efficient. So I'm not just guessing at what motivates people. Well said, James, that's nice. And when you're referencing this person that you met who says, I love working here, that directly changes everything for the customer, for the, for the, you know, the people that are the receiving end of your organization. Yeah, so when you can tap into what is naturally motivating people, they have energy. They want to be there. They're creative. They are clear on their role and how they fit and their value. And you know, your team can take over the world at that point, you know, people aren't limited. Once you get these going, if any of these start to be violated, though, I mean, what could be a great team can lock down on you in a hurry. And I've experienced that on both ends by being led by ineffective leaders. I've been an ineffective leader on many occasions. I still might be tomorrow. What I love about those is this is giving me such a grid of how to get back on track when that happens. I think there's got to be a podcast called like the good enough leader, where it's like no leader can ever be 100% in, in attachment with the organ or like in a secure connection with every employee or their, the people they report to. And so a good leader knows how to make that repair. So as we're laying out where we're going with this attachment science and transforming leadership, just trying to move it into some specificity. I want to go over the two broad categories that these five behavioral systems tends to funnel into, if you will. And so the words that I think we decided to use, you could use different words if you want. Okay, this is not about getting the word right as more as more of developing a rubric or a system to look at the discussion to get a specific to either get us on track, get us out of the ditch, if you will. And to be constantly paying attention to your leadership process. So one word, we're going to use the word attunement. You can also use the word bonding. On the other side, we're going to use the word structure. So attunement and structure, attunement and structure over and over and over. These are the two pieces that to me are the most important broad terms to really evaluate leader and leadership with. So when you hear those words, what do you think about James? Man, I love that you're pointing this out. I mean, these are these two forces that leaders feel all the time. I want to be able to like connect with my people and have like this kind of like, I don't want to say like, but this is like this relationship of warmth in a way of the people. But then I also have this other burden in me where I'm responsible for maybe sometimes disciplinary issues, keeping things on track. What we kind of attribute to manage being a manager. And sometimes I've had people where it's like they want to pick one or the other. But a good leader is going to be able to embrace both of these sides because you need it to really be able to do and help your people to feel safe. Because I've been on the other side when they can't hold this and it's not safe. Well said and here's what we find is that no leader or very few leaders are naturally equally strong in both these categories. Most leaders are either pretty good at attunement or pretty good at structure. Very few people are good at both. And some people can't do either, so probably shouldn't be in leadership at all. But all of us can improve here. Let's go back to and define those when we talk about structure structure is the push. And I want to be clear, we're on here, we're psychotherapists, we don't want to come across like, oh, this is just about being this nice fluffy leader. That's not true. People can do way more than they think they can. And oftentimes they don't figure out how much they can do until someone else sees it for them and pushes them to it. And people need some boundaries. They need to know what lines can't be crossed. They need to understand that the good of the whole outweighs the good of the individual. Obviously not talking about abuse is there, but as a whole, people need to know that their structure. They need to be pushed. There's a place for that. On the other side, what we're talking about is attunement. And attunement is going to vary a lot based on what kind of leader and who you're leading. But by attunement, what I mean is synchrony, it can look like empathy. It can look like really entering that person's world. It can look, you can use the word relationship here or being a relational leader. That's what we're referring to when we're talking about attunement. You can even use the word love in some situation. So let's look at three leaders really fast. You ready? We got a CEO of a major company. We got a drill sergeant. And we got a mother of a home. All three of those are leadership positions. They have to do some things different. But what I would suggest to you is there's a lot more alike than there actually is different. And even though the applications have to adjust the bottom line of what makes that CEO drill sergeant and mother successful or larger going to be the same. So each one of them has to balance attunement with structure. So how might that look? What do you think about that? How does a mother balance attunement and structure a sergeant and a CEO of a big company? Right. My mind just blew when you gave those three examples because it is so true. It is so true. We didn't plan that. We just kind of made that. I'm literally over here trying to digest that line. So what was that question again? So how do each of these three leaders have to balance this relational attunement and structure? Yeah, because even for the CEO, he's going to want to walk around and shake he or she is going to walk on a walk around shake hands. Have this like intimate relationship. You know, we want to think about undercover boss and he's handing out the checks and scholarships and knowing about their family. They want to do that, but then there's times when they got to do some hard things, whether it's disciplinary, just whatever the drill sergeant, same thing. Hey, I want to get down there and patch on the back troop. But hey, you violated today and it's going to it's going to be some extra PT or punishment or something. And the mom same thing. I want to just love and hug my baby. They're so cute. That's so awesome. But when you hit your sibling, that wasn't okay. Yeah. And I need to bring you back in mind. Yeah. Well said. Yeah. So, you know, the attunement relational attunement piece goes with a lot of what we think about with motherhood. Although it's not true for everybody, but anyway, you know, but that loving that touch that I'm in your world, that mom who will get on the ground and play with her children, that's what we mean by relational attunement. But if mom can't, if mom does really, really good relational attunement and can't do structure, kids are going to get hurt. It's not just about hitting your sibling. It's about, hey, we mean business when we say you can't touch that hot pan. So a mom who can do both those things is legendary. I know as a psychotherapist, I've worked with about 34,000 hours with people, mostly adults. And when I work with people who are really, really struggling, and I ask them about their family history, guess how many times they, they say something like, you know, my parents were great. They really, really got me where we were really, really close. We really, they were always there for me when I was going through hard times, but, but they also meant business. And you didn't cross them. And when they said something, you knew it, and you had a little healthy fear of them. I never hear that. You understand what tells you something about leadership. When you can balance these two variables, it's really key. You know, when you think about the drill sergeant, it's pretty clear to see their structure. They wake you up, you dress a certain way, they're in your face, they're pushing you, you know, you think you can't run anymore, and you do anyway, you feel like you can't do another push up and you do 20 more. So that's the structure, but a good drill sergeant, and I've interviewed several will tell you, it's not just about the push. The sergeant has to be in tune with where his unit is, or whatever his division is there, because there's a time a really great drill sergeant can feel, can tell when it's time to pull back. When it's time to, you know, work them out in the pool one day, as opposed to push ups, because he can sense that he's pushed so much he might injure them, right? He can tell sometimes when it's time to go teach a shooting technique with the rifle, as opposed to just screaming and yelling, it really is the balance of those both in any kind of leadership. And I can tell you as being a military member, I can feel that my drill instructor had that balance. And so we'd want to do as being the person who is under him, is like, I'd want to do anything for him. And I'd wouldn't question anything he did, because it's like, he has our best interest at heart, just get it done, just get it done. And you can kind of feel that, right? You can tell, is this guy yelling at me because of him, or because he actually cares about me? Yeah. And that's that relational to him at peace. There's a quote, and I wish I had thought about this for the, but it's a quote from an army general. And he was talking about it's in the breast of the commander, whether if he chooses to exercise his leadership, he can choose one way he exercises it and he can break contempt in his followers. Or he can choose to have respect for his followers and then breeding them a desire to want to obey. You have a choice, but he says, but he's like many times in leadership, we can want to put it on the people out there, but he says it's really in the breast of the commander. And that's everything, right? If someone is, if someone on your team is performing because they have to or because they want to, every single person they touch will know. And therefore they're the extension of you. So that's what we're saying. You can't catch one more part, even when I think about teachers as leaders. I remember there were teachers in our school, like, like you would almost say they would get on you. But then they also could be the ones that had this ability to reward you. I love those teachers. I mean, they'll teachers make me want to study more because it's like, man, you got that part, they're going to get on you. But then it's like, when you get that reward that part of when you get to connect with them, it just drives you versus the teacher that's just a pushover. That's right. I was all referenced as twice in this episode, I think, but I was speaking at the US Air Force Academy. And I got a chance to do several sections on leadership. And so I asked them for a show of hands. Who they remembered what what leader most influenced them. And so I had them write it down. And then I had them write down the attributes and a very high percentage of them and everywhere I speak on this. The leader that you most remember actually is the highest structure leader. What you remember is the one who was hardest on you typically. And I don't mean abusive. We're not talking about that. But the one who pushed you harder like when I think about one of my old football coaches extremely hard on me extreme, but I could kind of feel he was being hard on me because he saw potential. But he pushed me and pushed me and pushed me. And that's the one I remember. So it's that ability is it's not about being soft. It's really about that balance. And then it's really about what message does your father will take from being on the receiving end of you. Wow. That's a high paying attention to you. I want to give that make sure that's a practical point, even for you right now as a leader. Maybe you just sent me if you're sitting your desk driving your car, be thinking through your list. What are the attributes of the influential leaders in your life? And what do you remember about them? And then you said a second one that just hit me ran. I've heard you talk about that concept. And what do you think it's like for you're the people that you lead to be on the receiving end of you? That's that's really everything, isn't it? And I want to make space for how hard this is. Yes, thank you. I directly lead about at the at the airing of this particular podcast. I directly lead up between 55 and 60 people indirectly through various sources. It's a long story about about twice that much. And so that can be overwhelming pretty fast. I can't stay in perfect relational attunement at all times with people. You know, I've got to sort of designate a smaller team to carry out the leadership and so forth. But so in a way you can't, but in a way you cannot not the people that follow you are receiving you all the time. And so I think the responsible leader, the attuned leader that that is informed by attachment science is paying attention to his or her own process. So we're going to we're going to in future episodes many of them. We're going to unpack more of what we mean by the relational attunement side and the structure, the push side. But we want to before we wrap up today, we want to make a few points here because one of the one of the ideas that I hear from leaders that are not very effective a lot is how they want to be consistent. And that's a neat concept. The problem though is leadership is always moving. You're not leading the same people right now that you were six months ago. That's the problem also with too much orientation of personality profiles and all these inventory sometimes they can be useful. I've certainly seen that at times other times they can be a big detriment because if it makes you think you have this down, then you lose what we're trying to say, which is about being adaptive about being discerning for the movement within your organization or team. And I'll even say this, I operate under this assumption and I'm speaking for myself here as well. No leader is ever in balance at any one time to take on the role of leadership is to take on imbalance. And by balance, what I'm referring to is these two sides relational to intimate and structure every leader. This is our presumption every leader is out of balance at any one given time. And therefore their organization is constantly needing reset reset reset reset when a leader goes bad. It's because they become rigid. They tend to do the same thing over and over and over. I talked to them sometimes they're saying, well, I want to be consistent. And I'm like, let's find out what works before we try to get too consistent with this. So how these things are going to play out this relational attunement side, the structure side are going to vary at times greatly based on culture, based on the nature of your relationship with them, where we going, if you lead 10,000 people, obviously it's going to be a bit different than how if you lead 10. And yet at other times, it's exactly the same. It's still the same basics that creates movement or stuckness. I appreciate what you're saying, Ryan. It feels so hopeful for leaders and giving them that space. It's okay to be flexible. I don't have to find one camp and lock down and because that inherently can feel defeating. Because you always I know these leaders I hear listening, they feel that pull for both sides at all times, if they take a moment right now, think about it, they feel it. And I think you appreciate appreciate that flexibility. That is always it's dynamic. It's moving. Yeah, I think this is really good. Yeah, and I think I think it kind of kind of moving to wrap up our episode today is is what we've seen is that attachment science, these concepts function almost like a cheat sheet. Yep. I mean, when it's good, it's really good. I know at the Air Force Academy that what I was referencing earlier, I was able to share some of this. I had done like five or six talks there on various topics, suicidality, resiliency in the soldiers and so forth. And I got decent feedback, but the leadership one was the one I continue to get emails on, which I was surprised by. I mean, I think there's a lot of great leadership in the US military, but the feedback was we hadn't quite thought of it in the way that you're talking about there. And specifically they said, you know, we started to go back and apply this. And we started to get in movement for the first time with some people that we were really having trouble getting to move. And we'd like to talk more about that. And so that was good to hear. Of course, happy that they're able to do that because I want them to be good at their job, by the way, it's nice to be defended. But I think I think what you find is people have motivation, even the people who are, you know, if you think about the least effective people in your organization, the ones you would like to be different. Maybe you want them to work harder or better. How soon did are you to their motivation? And if the answer is not very much, you're never going to get what you can out of them. So that's really the point we're trying to go for here. I think on this podcast is how to learn to be adaptive to access this motivation. You know, because it is important to be consistent to your values and your vision, but also you got to be dynamic and adaptive in their application. That's kind of the bottom line that we're going for here in this podcast. Thank you for listening. We hope this experience helps you push the leading edge in your work to help people connect with themselves and with each other. You can contact us at push the leading edge at gmail.com and you can follow us on our Facebook page at push the leading edge. You can follow Ryan Rainer on Facebook at Ryan Rainer Professional Training and on his website, RyanRainerTraining.com. You can follow James on Facebook and Instagram at dockhawklpc. You can also check out his website, dockhawklpc.com.