Your Attachment Style At Work with Jack Hinman

The Anxious Achiever

Morra Aarons-Mele

Business, Careers, Health & Fitness, Management, Mental Health

4.7 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2026

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if the stress you feel at work isn’t just about deadlines or difficult bosses, but about your attachment style? In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Jack Hinman, founder and executive director of Engage Young Adult Transitions, to talk about how the patterns you develop in early childhood show up in your leadership, ambition, anxiety, and burnout. We break down secure, preoccupied, and avoidant attachment styles, how they influence the way you handle feedback and uncertainty, and why your “relationship operating system” doesn’t stop at home. Tune in to understand your patterns and learn how to lead from connection instead of fear. Check out our sponsors: Northwest Registered Agent - Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes! Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/achieverfree Shopify - Sign up for a $1 per month trial, just go to http://shopify.com/anxiousachiever Talkiatry - Head to http://talkiaitry.com/achiever and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. Working Genius - Take the working genius assessment today and get 20% off with code ACHIEVER at working http://genius.com Brevo - Meet brevo, the all in one marketing and CRM platform built to help you connect with customers, boost engagement and grow your business smarter. Go to brevo.com/achiever and use code ACHIEVER50 for 50% off. In this Episode, You Will Learn 00:00 The heartbreaking monkey experiment that shaped attachment theory. 06:30 What's the difference among secure, preoccupied, avoidant, and disorganized styles? 10:00 What happens when a preoccupied employee has an avoidant boss. 11:15 How does avoidant attachment show up in leadership? 15:45 What “secure” actually looks like at work. 18:45 How to “own the dynamic” in difficult workplace relationships. 20:30 Self-awareness is the foundation of good leadership. 23:00 Why uncertainty and change activate attachment patterns. 25:15 Why connection is both the outcome and the intervention. 28:45 What happens when two anxious leaders feed each other’s stress. 31:15 Why “anchors” are essential for healing attachment patterns. 34:45 Tools to regulate attachment triggers. Resources + Links Learn more about Dr. Jack Hinman and Engage Young Adult Transitions HERE! Learn more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills and resources HERE! Get a copy of my book - The Anxious Achiever Watch the podcast on YouTube Find more resources on our website morraam.com Follow Follow me: on LinkedIn @morraaronsmele + Instagram @morraam

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Maura Aaron's Mealy, and this is the Anxious Achiever.
0:07.7	If you've ever taken Psych 101, you surely remember Harry Harlow's heartbreaking experiment with baby monkeys.
0:20.0	This is the famous experiment in which monkeys are not given a real
0:27.9	monkey mother, but they are given a mother who is covered in cloth and is a little monkey-ish
0:35.4	and soft to the touch,
0:37.8	and a wire, quote, mother that feeds them.
0:42.3	And the wire mother is hard and unappealing.
0:46.3	And the monkeys in many of Harlow's experiments
0:50.3	crave the soft present of a parent figure so much, they choose the cloth-bound,
0:59.0	softer stand-in for a monkey than the wire mother that gives them food. And when they're scared,
1:08.7	they turn to their cloth mother.
1:11.8	This experiment just makes me cry.
1:14.0	You can watch it on YouTube if you need a tear break.
1:18.4	And Harlow's experiment showed us a lot about attachment, right?
1:23.2	Which means our sense in the world of being cared for, that there is a person for us or many people
1:34.5	to whom we can turn to, who will comfort us. That person is often in infancy the mother,
1:43.6	but it doesn't have to be, which is very liberating
1:46.1	for us mothers.
1:47.2	And today we're going to talk about attachment style and our careers, how the attachment
1:53.3	style, which starts very young in childhood, affects us at work.
1:57.7	And it's funny, this is a topic that you requested over the years. And so it's a great
2:02.7	episode with Dr. Jack Hinman, who is the founder and executive director of engaged transitions.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Morra Aarons-Mele, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Morra Aarons-Mele and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.