The 4 Attachment Styles and How They Show Up at Work

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0:57Hi, I'm Sarah.

0:59Helen:And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance and try to turn those ideas and that curiosity into useful action for you and your squiggly career. And so today we are going to borrow brilliance from the concept of attachment styles, which I have known about for a while, probably in a very much like an out of work concept, because it's the sort of thing that I'm quite interested in and curious about. And often And when I'm talking to friends about their relationships, it will often come back to what's your attachment style? What's their attachment style?

1:33And I knew that Sarah would never give this the thumbs up to talk about on the podcast until it was featured in Harvard Business Review. And I was on an aeroplane last night to come to Toronto, which is where I now am, because we are doing some learn like a lobster work here as part of our book launch. And I was reading Harvard Business Review and there was an article in it. Let me read you the article, Sarah, because I said that Sarah screenshot how to manage an insecure leader. Three steps for dealing with anxious or avoidant executives. And anyone who is familiar with the concept of attachment styles will know that a lot of it is about whether you're you've got a secure attachment or an anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment.

2:17attachment and this whole article is about when you spot those styles in the people that you work with particularly your leader what should you do about it and so I've managed to get attachment

2:29Helen:styles on the podcast and I thought you were just going to say this is how we detach I was like we could be attached and now it's time to detach no you need to stay well I guess you need to adapt dependent on someone's attachment style and if you care about working with them right I mean it's a choice you could just be like yeah that's how they are this is who I am and like I'm not going to do anything different but in reality particularly if this is your management manager I think having an awareness of their style and being able to spot that and then being able to do something different as a result of it is useful but we did also want to get I guess you to reflect a little bit on what your style might be so it isn't just about oh they're so avoidant they're so anxious yeah I think it's very easy isn't it to point the finger with this stuff I think it is quite useful to reflect on well what might my style be for the majority of my time not all of your time the majority of the time and then what how could that affect the people that you work with too I think there are you know we're looking at both sides of it and when you dive into this I think this is probably not one that I can imagine teams talking about together because it feels quite personal so like having spent some time doing it and like you're trying to work out what your attachment style might be you know when you take these ideas and you figure out like when do we think you're most likely to use this when will we apply this and in lots of the work that we do we'll often talk about oh this is even more useful if you talk about it together as a team um but I actually just couldn't imagine that so as I was going through I was like I can't imagine even a very psychologically safe team probably having this conversation that's also probably not the first thing that I would suggest that teams should do I think this is helpful for you for like your own self-awareness as Helen said and probably particularly useful if something isn't clicking or you'll find something really hard with someone else who's in a position of power I think this might just help you understand and adapt enough to Helen's point you don't have to like change who you are it's often about adapting enough so helen are you gonna gonna tell me what style you are yeah i do feel like if there are any actual psychologists listening to this i'm sure they probably hate apologize probably think yeah they're probably like yeah they're probably like oh so reductive it's i apologize we're just trying to kind of do it at a high level so that people can build better relationships and i don't think there's anything wrong with that and so why don't i go through they'll be like listening to you going defensive she's defensive so like if a psychologist is listening now they'll be like what can we infer from that sorry so at a high level um i will just talk through the four attachment styles and by the way um the research on this shows that your attachment style is largely formed through your early life experiences quite interesting um but i'll go through at a high level um when they can work for you when they work against you some things that you might you might spot and then sarah and i are going to have a bit of a chat because i wanted to know intuitively which one did you think you might be and then we have used an AI prompt to get some I guess more specific insight into based on a couple of questions which ones do we are we most likely to identify us so the four styles then and the first one is secure so the good thing about this style is that these are people that are very comfortable collaborating they are very open they they build trust easily they learn quickly and then this is the one that we all want to be okay this is like this is the one that works well with everyone and however there are some i guess challenges if someone is secure predominantly they may assume that other people are too like we're all just fine with this we're all fine learning and getting feedback and collaborating everyone's comfortable with that and and they can underestimate that other people might seek more reassurance or you know might need that because it's not in their head to think like that so they they don't necessarily um think other people need that either so that's secure anxious is someone who the advantage of this one is they're very conscientious they're very responsive you know these these people care about how other people think and feel and react to situations so there's a lot you know loads of high care in these people um however the flip side of someone who's got quite an anxious style is they might need a lot of reassurance or approval and they bring quite a lot of worry into their work and you know then yeah that that kind of anxiety can actually become a source of a source of stress for somebody with that style the next two get I think a little bit more a little bit more nuanced I feel like it's quite easy to get your head around secure and anxious.

7:11The next two are around avoidant. So you can be avoidant dismissive, which is somebody who's super independent and self-sufficient, but a bit different to the secure person who is comfortable with collaboration. These people kind of dismiss or avoid the collaboration. They're like, I know what I'm doing. I don't need to involve other people. I just get on with it and make the decision and that's fine. So very independent. Sarah's laughing. Why are you laughing, sarah i'll wait i'll wait till you tell me which one you were so sarah's waiting so yeah super super independent um the challenges we'll just hold we'll hold these challenges for now we'll chat in a minute um may avoid collaboration can appear a bit distant or disengaged because of that independence um and they may not proactively learn from other people because they kind of don't see the need to i just want to get on with it and get stuff done we'll come back to it um and then And the last one is avoidant, but fearful avoidant.

8:09So just like the anxious ones, these people are perceptive about other people and they are aware of power dynamics, for example, in situations. They can kind of they're very good at reading a room, but sometimes that means that they are sort of too sensitive. So they don't they don't engage. They talk themselves out of it. this avoidant fearful they're so scared of a situation or worried about what will happen that they don't even put themselves in a position so someone who's anxious probably still get involved but the avoidant fearful just talks themselves out of being involved in it at any point and they have very strong reactions to criticism they can be quite um inconsistent so it's quite hard to read if you've got one of these people for example that you work with avoidant fearful it's quite hard to read them and they just seem to kind of worry and get worked up and never actually commit to doing anything and so these are our four four styles um so we were there and i were going to have a chat what do we see in each other what do we see in ourselves and then what did the ai say

9:11Helen:does ai know us better than we know ourselves yeah is that what do you see in yourself what do you see in me um in myself uh i thought i would be like mainly secure um and and that was true like when I answered the questions and you can describe the prompt that we both used and we both used that I actually used it twice on two different platforms partly because one of the times I was out and about and I was like oh I've got a different one on my phone I'll just try it and see if I learn something new so mainly secure but I recognize the avoidant fearful one specifically when you then start diving into some of the questions that it asks you around conflict so obviously I don't I don't like conflict and so I would I would sort of fear that and kind of avoid that and I don't think I'm always really proactive about feedback and that's one of the other areas that it would ask you about other things like open collaboration asking for help it's like you prepared to ask for help I'm like sure great I love asking for help you know I and I don't mind involving other people I don't have that kind of sense of um I'll always have the best idea I think I you know I love having ideas but I do want to involve people along the way so definitely they're kind of secure but then the the last one as well um and then with you um the avoidant dismissive one i think can sometimes happen i don't recognize all of your description though i would say which like most things were hardly ever 100 one thing right so if you said to me does helen like learning with other people i'd be like yeah of course of course of course she does um and actually really you're really curious and you love learning with the people but there is a phrase um in that the research that you've done that you'd sent to me where the phrase was let's just move it forward and I was like well has Helen written that phrase or has that just come from the thing because it just sounds like Helen um and you know obviously I can see sometimes in you the I don't know it's because you want to be pacey you wouldn't always it want to involve people because you just like well that's gonna that's gonna slow us down or slow me down um and so yeah probably some of the phrases i mean even that last one it says i'll take this and like i've never known anyone sort as much stuff out as you do all of the time you know i'll sort that well i'll just do that now i mean you literally did it right before this call where we were talking about something that i offered to do and then you still did it and i was like yeah i mean i love it obviously you like you take take what i can't remember what that was that's the thing you can't i can't even remember what we were talking about and i think i literally you said the words I will do that because it like made sense for like me to to lead on that thing um by that point you clearly weren't listening because you were like on your phone like trying to solve the problem I was like oh it's all good content it's all good content I mean and then even even then like I've looked at it and I was like oh actually it doesn't doesn't quite work so I do actually need to do it but uh yeah it did it did make me laugh what about you when you did it well Well, I thought I can, what do I think with you?

12:11I see you as secure. Generally, like when I kind of think you're very open, probably more than me. You know, you're very, very open to feedback. You're very willing to collaborate. Maybe sometimes the bit of the anxious one. I think you'll flip to that more than me. I think I rarely get into that world of worry. It just doesn't, it doesn't because I just go, well, I'll just do it. so I rarely flip to the world of worry and I don't have thoughts that go you know I would never really have that spiral situation so I would say like for you probably 90 % secure 10 % some kind of anxious I never feel like you're avoidant that you always like you know I do it in my own head welcome to my brain yeah the other thing you described something which when you said

12:59Helen:I can't which one it was in now so if you can remember and I was like oh I wonder if that's me sometimes you know when you were like you all you didn't quite use the word scattergun but you said like someone can be a bit you know almost like your worry could show up in lots in lots of different ways um and because i have i do have quite a lot of agility in like my my thinking but then sometimes i think my anxiousness which i don't i it's funny isn't it like the word i think i get a bit worried about using it because i do feel like other people are more anxious and also So it can be very stressful to be like that.

13:31Helen:And I wouldn't want to take that away. I'm like, I'm generally not an anxious person. I'm a pragmatic person. But I think sometimes I wonder if I can be quite hard to read. Someone on our team even said something to me. They were like, oh, yeah, I'm going to try and stop second guessing what messages mean. And I was thinking, is she actually trying to say to me, I'm going to try and stop second guessing what your, you know, like what your messages mean? you know when someone's like they're not quite sure and because sometimes I think my tone I was thinking about this that my tone can vary really wildly so if I looked at my team's messages to the same person I think they can be everything from very thoughtful ask like a really insightful question and like connect to what people are doing outside of work to something really quite direct and so you're like oh is that a bit you know like the kind of sometimes that is that's the avoidant fearful one then is that what avoidant fearful is okay well if your collaboration may feel inconsistent um yes i wonder if my collaboration feels inconsistent and i wouldn't i know i'm hard to read because every time i do those any kind of profiling things i'm always the weird one mix there's always like no one really has this profile so it will ignore it and then they're like oh no but you do and so that must make me hard to read though right because you're like what I'm never quite unless you know me really well you can get a really wide mix of things from me you could get one minute that font is wrong in a presentation and then the next minute a really strategic question and that is that is definitely true so you're like oh it's interesting when you think about your impact right the more you understand for yourself it's not like I'm it's almost what has made me reflect on is less how I hold myself back more how it's holding other people back because if you think about those descriptions there that you just talked to me about well I can communicate and collaborate inconsistently it's sort of almost it's not impacting me but maybe it is impacting maybe people are sort of sometimes second guessing like oh she's been quite direct does that mean she's mad at me is she angry I don't want I don't want people to feel dismissed no I don't just because my desire to move things forward it's quite interesting because I do you know the thing it's a bit like the radical candor stuff when they talk about manipulative insincerity and obnoxious aggression i feel like the terms well yes but actually it is almost quite useful to think about it at its worst like so the fact that my avoidant dismissive style could make somebody feel like i'm not open that you don't care i'm literally dismiss i don't care i'm dismissing someone it's quite emotive language but maybe that's sometimes when you need to kind of hear that you at your word can feel quite dismissive to the people that you're working with or you at your worst could feel like you're very inconsistent for your colleagues like it's quite yeah useful to like think about that I think I think it is actually really useful because it would make me it would make me think about my actions so you know back to like there's no point having awareness but then about without thinking about well what are the actions that then I might take or like what might I do differently and and some of it could this could maybe be you know we talked about how do you turn this into like more of a tool for teams I can imagine this kind of conversation in a team in the right you're probably still going to be a psychologically safe team but you know if you'd used it yourself to then say I've realized that my worst that perhaps I could be hard to read I could be inconsistent my collaboration um those kind of things and you know you'll probably get some maybe get some rye smiles or like you know some like yeah like that might be true I may see that I might see that from you some of the time but then you could also talk to people about going well what what i might experiment with or what would be useful because you know sometimes you could also can't solve your own problems like i think so you know actually someone may be saying oh well like for example in our team i think if people were ever thinking oh is sarah like mad at me or does she think i've done something wrong or does she blame me you know one was giving people permission to just be like ask or call me or you know it always is something wrong is it worth having us having a quick chat and probably i'll be like 90 % of the time like oh no it's fine i'm just in a rush yeah you know like that how easy it is to like misinterpret things i wonder if there are some things that you could do as a team that would particularly if this is not a massive issue like we're going to talk a little bit about you know if you've got a manager there's let's face it a bit of a nightmare it's you're probably in a slightly different scenario if you're in a team that's working relatively well these kind of chats are probably like probably useful starting this is like even better riffing it isn't it so yeah and but you're right it does depend on the team so um we'll just briefly talk through what ai told us um and the prompt that we'll put into the prompt yeah i think that was that i found that really helpful i copied yours so there's an interesting data point in the article which we'll put in the pod sheet which says recent research suggests that about 36 percent of adults have an insecure attachment style so that is the anxious one or the avoidant um whether that's dismissive avoidant or fearful avoidant so it's just useful to know that like one in three people kind of come out like that but if you do want to get maybe a bit closer to what your style might be the prompt that we use and again i'll put this in the pod sheet which you can download in the show notes or from amazingif.com on the podcast page um is using john bolby's and mary ainsworth work on attachment styles to attribute it to the right people asked me five questions to identify my attachment style at work and I think we both did this in chat gpt and claude were the platforms we used so what did what did it tell you sarah was it a surprise or was it similar to what you thought you might be so actually no it wasn't it wasn't a surprise so it said I've got a mostly secure attachment style at work because it did do it in a work context I actually think I might sometimes be different for this outside of work with a slight independent avoidant tendency.

19:33Oh, interesting. Which is more the dismissive one, right, than the fearful one if you're independently avoidant.

19:39Helen:Well, the avoidant bit is the fearful one and then the avoidant dismissive is the other. So I think it was actually saying a little bit of both because apparently I've got one deviation. I used that word. It said, and actually it gives two examples. so it was like basically you don't like conflict which is more the kind of fearful one and then it's if something you know they ask you a bit about like distance so if someone feels like distant um I tend to withdraw and rely on myself rather than investigate a relationship so that's where you also end up in avoidant dismissive as well so like yeah so what's helpful um I don't know this is because this is obviously how the prompts work is I did actually found I sort of spent longer than I imagined because it kept saying would you would you be interested in this and I was like well yes I would be you know like it caught it caught my imagination and it started to like give me examples and it kind of made suggestions it did a deep I did a deeper dive assessment I um it was telling me like the five signals that you could look out for which helps you to understand different styles um so yeah I did actually get I ended up diving quite a lot deeper really just from start you know like you can start with one prompt and then actually the AI helps you with the other prompts yeah I mean because I think you can tie yourself up in knots a little bit with like oh is it avoidant dismissive it's avoidant fearful so I do think actually the AI stuff helps you create a bit of clarity and I came out as mainly secure but when um that actually when there's a bit of uncertainty that's when I can deviate into a different one so for example there's uncertainty I'm at my avoidant dismissive like in uncertainty I'm like well I'll just do it I'll just work away you don't need to worry about it I'll just get it done so that's when I can probably dismiss someone else's worries but largely secure which is um which is interesting so what we thought we would do now is we spend the rest of the podcast just quickly going through each of the styles and just talk about some um sort of adaptive behaviors so whether if it's you or if it's someone that you work with that you see this style in what could you do differently so that you can you know be either be at your best or build a better relationship with them um shall we start with secure sarah yes i do like i i assume some people are listening and chuckling being like oh claimed behavior sure they've both said that they're secure which i think if that is you listening now i think that's very valid um because because obviously this is us just deciding like of course of course we're collaborative and all this good stuff and can ask for help um so i think if you're secure um if this is you um i think it's important that you don't underestimate almost like the value of some of the behaviors that you have because you are secure and so things like sharing your thinking out loud so people can understand the processes I actually was thinking and about our team and sometimes Helen and I do hear this feedback where people say oh it was so helpful just to hear you talk about that and I'll think oh really like you know like I'm like oh I thought everyone sort of knew or it's like okay um well it perhaps won't have been the thing that I had imagined would be most useful and so I think sometimes when you're secure which is a brilliant place to be you can then underestimate that actually the the kind of value and how valuable it is to kind of do some of those things like um people seeing you ask for help would be another really good one so when you're secure you don't mind asking for help because you're secure enough to ask for help um and again just thinking about like if you're listening to this as a manager or as a leader like the ripple effect of your team knowing that you do that um asking them for help seeing you ask for help from other people hearing you say phrases like I don't know or I'm actually not sure how we're going to approach that like like what what do you think and I think both Helen and I are very kind of confident doing that I also think it is easier now doing what we both do and running the company that we run than it has ever been in my squiggly career so if I think if I was doing this back in the kind of Sainsbury's days working a big retailer and some of these things I think kind of would have would feel harder so I do think your context makes a big difference yeah I think if you if you are genuinely a not disclaimed but genuinely secure leader I think what you role model for your team can be transformative because you're basically creating safety for everyone for sharing mistakes for asking for help for collaborating, for not having to hoard.

24:11Yeah, all of that. So if you are genuinely this, the impact that you can have on the people in your team is amazing. If you are working with somebody, your manager, and you think, oh, how can I build an even better relationship with them? Secure people quite like ownership. They're very confident with ownership. And so asking them for their views and their thoughts, they're very willing to share. You know, they're not going to hold on to their knowledge in a way to make them feel bigger and better. They're very comfortable sharing. So just proactively going to that person, I'd really like to get your input.

24:44I know you've been in this situation before. Can you share your thoughts with me? And sort of treat them as that peer because that's sort of how they're approaching their work generally. So let's move on to anxious for the next one. So if this is you, so this is kind of, you know, you're worrying, you're second guessing, you maybe start to spiral, that kind of thing. one thing that can be useful here is to use scales so let's say you're in a situation I don't know a meeting that didn't go very well and you're thinking ah it was awful what's it going to mean uh are they going to ask me to do it again all that kind of stuff and it can be very very helpful to use a scale to stop a spiral so I might think on a scale of one to ten how did that meeting go and I'd be like absolute two disaster meeting they're never going to want me in that situation again if you can go and ask someone that you trust what was your view of that meeting give me a score of one of one to ten and they're more like well six I noticed that you kind of were a bit nervous at that point but yeah main messages came through then suddenly you're starting to get a bit more perspective that can help you stop the spiral and I think an even better if with this one is because if you're anxious you can overlook for validation and approval of other people I would say get that data point for more than one person because if I'm anxious and I just seek Sarah's approval then I might I'm not necessarily getting the full perspective that I could whereas I ask for a couple of people I become less dependent on Sarah's need for approval to make me feel safe I

26:17Helen:suppose yeah and actually I was thinking about this one um for then if your manager is anxious now I don't think I am universally anxious I think most of the time I'm relatively secure but I do think I have anxious moments and I think so I was thinking okay what have I seen our team do well when I'm like that or what would help me to maybe chill out a bit basically um because I think when I get a bit anxious I think I probably go into the detail more I'm like asking lots of questions I think I could be quite relentless and so I think if you notice that your manager is quite anxious actually saying to them what do you need from me or what can I do for you that would be really useful or what questions have you got that I can help you find the answers to and so actually I can think of one or two things that I'm anxious about at the moment at work and actually what I want is like what I want to feel less anxious is data I want to know where we are like data and status and I think actually that would you know sort of what would lessen your anxiety those two things wouldn't actually make the problems go away that i'm thinking about or it wouldn't the challenges would still exist but i think i would have i think i feel like i had more of a hold on them you know sometimes you're anxious because you're a bit out of control or you don't know what you don't know um and then obviously you can get into like micromanagement behavior and all sorts of things that are kind of not very not very helpful so i actually think being really explicit about this is really helpful i once worked for someone where initially i was I'm not sure if I'm going to enjoy working for this person because I felt like she was really anxious the whole time you know I was like oh just leave me alone you know I'm fine just let me get on with stuff and then funnily enough once I I started to share a lot more with her I'm like I wonder if sharing is quite a useful word here so I started sharing a lot more and then I would really proactively ask her like what else like what else do you need from me what else would be useful and just really did that really consistently for her and then it sort of changed our dynamic and also we became friends and like we got on really well but I think probably she was initially a bit anxious because I was doing a new job so no one really knew what I was meant to be doing she probably hadn't been doing that job for that long she was probably under loads of pressure and maybe naturally a tad more anxious you know you talked about um behaviors under stress maybe that was like a high moment of stress for her and so that I think made our relationship there me just sort of just slightly trying to figure out you know like we talked about I think I adapted enough to kind of just lower the anxiety.

28:50I think there's quite a sort of tricky combo with the next one here, which is the avoidant dismissive. So if you take Sarah has moments of anxiety, and I know some of the things that Sarah's worried about, so I know exactly what she's talking about. And I have moments of avoidant dismissive. There's a bit of a tricky combo here, which is basically Sarah wants to feel more comfortable by diving into the data and the detail and my dismissive nature kind of goes either oh it's not important what you're worried about or well I'll just do it don't worry about it you know that's just get on with it I'll just just get on with it it's not that big a deal and um and it's interesting that's a real clash because that is actually the opposite of what someone who has has it's not that Sarah's always anxious but on those topics that behavior for me would be the worst thing for Sarah because that's not that's not helping her if I say well I'll do it or don't worry about it or dismiss it as being was not important none of those things in any way help you know Sarah was my manager um in any way is there in that situation so I think it's interesting how these you know your behavior their behavior can interact and so if you are leaning towards the avoidant dismissive so I'm talking about myself um definitely here a little bit I think what can be really useful here is to to get used to doing two things one sharing your first thoughts earlier to sort of practice engaging people so if you're dismissive what I can sometimes do at worst is I'll just think well I don't need I don't need there I know I'm doing I don't need to involve anybody but actually involving people sooner so getting used to kind of where where are you at halfway with something with you know a podcast script or a project or something but use it as a forcing function to involve people earlier rather than dismiss doing it with somebody else and then I think having a question almost as a bit of a habit like a question you ask so what are your questions about this or what your builds to make it better and I think the trick here is a to know your question so you've got it in your head so it becomes a habit but then to actually genuinely make time to listen to people's responses because if you just put a message on teams I'll give you an example like put a message on teams here's here's my halfway thoughts on the project really appreciate any questions or builds you've got and asking for that isn't the same I think as actually like reading listening and responding to it just slightly you know you can ask and still be dismissive like I'm like I've asked them and then you actually do have to then acknowledge and you know even if you use it or don't use it I think you have to kind of you have to sort of close the loop on it a little bit and then maybe I'll do because I again yeah this is someone was working with me and Sarah could Maybe do the last one on avoidant fearful.

31:34So if you are working with somebody who potentially shows behaviours like me, so can be, not all the time, but can be sometimes. No, you're not like this all the time. Avoidant dismissive or guarded or closed, it says, these sort of behaviours. And you want them, you want them to be involved. This is your manager. So you kind of don't want them to just dismiss you or the project or what you're working on. And don't make their engagement feel like a real time or energy drain. They're just going to dismiss it if you do that. So you want to get their involvement in quick, specific times. So you might say to them, I'd really like to get you involved at critical points on the project.

32:11I want to do that in a way that is as efficient as possible. So what would that work look like for you? I think if you are using like critical points, efficient engagement, that appeals to someone like me. So and then hopefully then they're also they're also determining what that involvement like look like rather than resisting what you might want it to look like. You might think, oh, I need two one hour meetings a week. And they're thinking, absolutely not. Just email me. Whereas if you say, you know, I need, you know, two 10 minute check ins or something like that. I think make it higher energy, ease of engagement, quick and efficient for them.

32:48You're more likely to get that person.

32:49Helen:I also think if I was working for you and was sort of struggling to keep up like that could you could definitely feel like that sometimes, you know, because someone's gone. They're quite fast and they're a bit dismissive of needing to involve everyone. You're like, we know what we're doing. I've got the clarity. You have a lot of clarity. But then I could feel left out. And so I also think I would probably be actually saying to my manager, like I'd be really explicit about wanting to be involved. because I sometimes think those behaviors aren't people intentionally leaving you out it's just that they are naturally moving fast and so like if I because I would I can obviously think about this for you if I could see that you were sort of running quite fast for something and I was thinking oh I'd quite I've got an opinion or I want to get involved I know that I would have to explicitly say that to you I and I would do I sort of leave no doubt I would say oh on that project can I can I be involved in those conversations or I'd like to add some ideas in as part of that like is that okay something and then I sort of know that you'd you'd always be like oh right yeah sure okay if you you know if you but I don't assume that you would think of me because I just don't think you always do in the nicest possible way sorry for like years of mistreating you no it's not you don't um last one avoidant fearful so fear of rejection maybe you've got um issues with trust uh maybe you can feel more pessimistic and obviously sometimes these things come from you've had really bad experiences so this is not the case um with me albeit i have had it a couple times in my overall squiggly career but if you've worked in a really toxic environment and then you've got a real um you've got trust issues at work you're like well okay that's that's really understandable or if you have had lots of rejection fearing rejection is a very normal natural response to that.

34:39Helen:So I think what you then need to do if this is you is notice when people do what they say they are going to do. So you're aiming here for sort of fair over fear. So this is what you're trying to do here I think is build up a picture of what is actually happening. So sometimes I think if you can get a bit negative you might be like oh they've not done that again. You're like okay is that the last 10 times they were doing that action have they not done it or is that nine times out of 10 they have done the action and this is the one time and so you're really just trying to note to like notice things that build trust and I think that people who who do what they say they're going to do who show up who turn up and take the action and do the action and that to me sometimes it's easy to skip past that and you just don't you just don't notice it but I think if you start to notice it you go oh okay well I do when Helen says to me she's going to send me that podcast script for the podcast like I believe her and I also believe that if she can't do it she she'll just she'll tell me but I don't then feel the need to be like I'm just gonna just checking in are you you doing imagine imagine my god imagine if we started checking in with each other it'd be a nightmare um so I think like we have a very high trust relationship because of that say do it doesn't mean we always do everything we absolutely don't but we sort of tell each other when we're not going to so I think notice that and then I think when you if you're working with somebody who is like this who you're like okay they don't seem to trust me they're quite they seem to like be worried about rejection um I think people are often looking for reassurance those people and usually they're not very well practiced in saying the hard thing because their experience of saying the hard thing might have been horrendous you know like really badly delivered feedback or you know like that much more fear over feedback and that's where we did this actually with our team last week and it worked really well Helen and I said the hard thing about like a project that we are all working on and we'd got some examples that we'd worked together on first and then we asked the team to do it in a so now if you were all going to say the hard thing like what have we missed what do we need to add to this list and people did it in groups and so I think that just made it really safe no one worried about being rejected for like saying the like wrong thing and so if I've got a manager who I thought was like this I think I would be saying the hard thing to them I'd be saying oh I've been reflecting on you know the even better ifs or maybe what's not working and I think it might be these two or three things and it's really important that we're open about those like what would you add what do you think I've missed and And so you're trying to build that trust by saying, I'm not trying to hide the hard stuff from you.

37:30Helen:Because in some cultures that happens, right? The hard stuff gets hidden. I'm not trying to hide it. I'm being really open. I'm being transparent. And I want to involve you. And maybe it's you start easier. Even better if is easier than say the hard thing. So perhaps you start with even better ifs and perhaps you try and progress to say the hard thing. So I think this conversation today is one that really benefits from the pod sheet. because I think you might be listening to it and thinking, oh, it's quite interesting, but you could potentially get lost in like, oh, which one am I again? So my recommendation, if you want to put today's conversation into action for your squiggly career, is go to the pod sheet because we'll put a table there of the styles and how it shows up and what to do if it's you, what to do if it's them.

38:11We'll put that in the pod sheet. And I think also for your own self-awareness, I would use that prompt because I think you'll get some much more personalised insight into what yourself your your style might be if you use that prompt so it's a particularly useful one for the pod sheet as i said at the start i'll put this in the show notes we'll put it on our website amazingif.com we will also put this uh pod sheet on social so if you go if you follow us either on instagram amazing if or on linkedin um we will post about it there so it's really easy

38:42Helen:for you to find so have fun you know reflecting on your attachment styles and analyzing analyzing everyone you work with and being like what do i think their attachment style are um but we hope you are finding them useful um and that it always feels like you listen and there's some action that you can take um just to feel that bit more confident and control in your squiggly career if you ever have any even better riffs or ideas for us to borrow brilliance from you can email us we're helen and sarah at squigglycareers.com but that's everything for this week thank you so much for listening i'm back with you again soon bye for now bye everyone