The biggest threat to your bottom line isn’t the market or your strategy - it’s your relationships.

6 Apr

Fun fact:

In addition to my private client work with individuals on their romantic and relational challenges…

I also support leadership teams inside high-growth, fast-paced companies - especially the ones who look strong on paper, but are running on fumes and unraveling under extreme pressure as they scale.

Because, surprise surprise, relational science shows that your personal wiring around relationships and attachment is so much more than just how you are in your private life.

It 100% shows up in how you are with your executive team.

It 100% shows up in how you are with your leadership.

It 100% shows up in how you are with your business.

And if that wiring is insecure, reactive, or overloaded…

It will 100% wreck your ability to scale and succeed long term - sustainably, effectively, and efficiently.

It 100% affects your company’s bottom line.

I’ll explain why in a moment.

Let’s imagine though, that the metrics look fine at your firm:

Pipeline’s growing
Churn’s steady
Headcount’s scaling

Everything is ‘fine’ on paper.

But in my experience, in 95% of cases if you're a high growth startup, the leadership team is going to be…more complicated.

They’re going to be territorial.

Tense.

Trust is likely going to be low.

Delegation’s highly likely to be nonexistent.

And almost certainly, everyone will be overfunctioning, overworked, overstressed.

It’s highly likely a culture of low-trust and quiet resentment - where every decision is escalated, second-guessed, or politically fraught.

No one feels safe enough to move fast.

Everyone is terrified of failure. Or not being good enough for the job.

And yet, everyone is ALSO being asked to move faster.

And do more with less.

I know this so intimately because of my many years spent in behavioral science where I was a regional VP of a global behavioral science firm helping companies with their people strategies, but also in my own private work:

So often I find myself consoling executives in tears in their office, on the phone to me, having panic attacks between board meetings.

Or they’re pulling their hair out, frustrated with leadership team dysfunction, and how a direct report failed to do their job…again.

VPs are so often fried from carrying emotional labor for fragile peers.

And founders I work with are often wondering if they built the wrong team OR if they’re the bottleneck (often they are).

No one is really sleeping all that well, and resentment is typically pretty high.

So yes, High growth company = often a total mess beneath the surface

And as someone who has studied human psychology for over a decade:

No — your average “leadership development” program won’t fix it.

Because you can’t train a team to delegate if no one trusts each other.

You can’t teach feedback frameworks to leaders whose nervous systems are in survival mode.

What you need is a secure leadership infrastructure — one that works with neuroscience and rewires how your team operates under pressure - once and for all.

This is where emotional maturity, clear delegation, healthy conflict, and trust aren’t short term little fixes you learn in a ‘leadership model’ but they’re default settings, part of your neurology, part of your automatic behaviors.

That’s what I do.

So what is secure attachment? What do I mean when I talk about insecure wiring?

Attachment theory - originally developed to explain how early relationships shape our emotional wiring - shapes how we lead, collaborate, and respond to pressure at work too.

For example, someone with an anxious attachment style may overwork to prove their value, constantly worry about what their boss thinks, or feel unsettled when they don’t receive immediate feedback. They might seem needy, volatile, very emotional, and micromanaging.

Meanwhile, someone with an avoidant attachment style may appear calm and independent - but avoid conflict, struggle with delegation, or resist vulnerability in team dynamics. Often in my experience, they may avoid telling the truth about their work and hide things.

The workplace becomes a mirror.

If we grew up having to earn love or safety, we often replay that pattern in our careers - seeking approval, fearing rejection, or over-identifying with our performance.

That’s why understanding your attachment style is a professional strategy.

1. Secure Attachment (what you want more of in your company)

Core Traits: Grounded, open, collaborative, and self-assured under pressure. Very cool, calm, and collected, authentic, able to be vulnerable, navigate hard conversations, and show up powerfully.

Workplace Patterns:

Gives and receives feedback without spiraling.
Can handle conflict with maturity—stays connected without becoming reactive.
Delegates well and trusts others to deliver.
Doesn’t take things personally and isn’t afraid to ask for help.
Example:
A team lead with a secure style might receive critical feedback from the CEO and use it to sharpen strategy - without seeing it as a personal attack. They’ll raise concerns early, resolve issues calmly, and advocate for their team without burning out or bulldozing others.

2. Anxious Attachment (what I see a lot of)

Core Traits: Hyper-aware of others’ reactions, approval-seeking, and tends to personalize professional dynamics. Often quite emotional, reactive, ‘panic’ energy and loves to micromanage.

Workplace Patterns:

Over-prepares or overworks to gain reassurance or avoid criticism.
May catastrophize small signals (a boss’s silence = “I’m failing”).
Struggles to set boundaries; says yes too often.
Feels unsettled without external validation.

Example:
An anxious exec might panic when a client delays replying to an email - assuming something’s wrong. They’ll work overtime to “fix it,” even if no one asked them to. Their performance is often stellar but driven by internal pressure, not ease.

3. Avoidant Attachment

Core Traits: Self-reliant, emotionally distant, resists vulnerability and over-values control. Prefers to be a lone wolf, do things alone, really doesn’t like conflict or emotions, gets overwhelmed easily, can be prone to lying or hiding things.

Workplace Patterns:

Keeps people at arm’s length—especially in leadership roles.
Avoids uncomfortable conversations or downplays tension (“It’s fine”).
May resist feedback or collaboration—prefers to do it alone.
Struggles with visibility and receiving praise.
Example:
An avoidant founder may avoid difficult conversations with a co-founder or team member to "keep the peace," but the result is simmering tension and lack of alignment. They may intellectualize problems to avoid dealing with uncomfortable emotions.

4. Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment (when trust is an issue!)

Core Traits: Craves connection but fears it, swings between closeness and withdrawal. Often shaped by unresolved past trauma. Often has trust issues, hates to delegate, quite fiery and can be volatile emotionally.

Workplace Patterns:

May alternate between being highly engaged and completely disengaged.
Finds it hard to trust others and often second-guesses decisions.
Can appear confident one day and chaotic the next.
Sensitive to power dynamics—can feel easily threatened or betrayed.

Example:
A high-performing consultant with this style might lead a killer pitch, then ghost the team for three days. They crave recognition and impact, but their inner instability causes inconsistency - and can confuse or alienate colleagues and clients.

Now crucially, this is all because of how someone is wired.

It’s not something your typical leadership development program or online learning tool is going to solve. That’s a superficial solution that doesn’t get to the root cause of the issue - which is how people are wired in relationships.

You have to rewire your leaders to become secure.

Companies like Patagonia who boast a 5% attrition rate have adopted secure attachment leadership work, and found that it increased efficiency by 33%. (No surprises there).

McKinsey and Google have also adopted this approach, under the guise of psychological safety, recognising that calm and open leaders who are emotionally regulated create way more efficient and productive, high performing work spaces.

Secure attachment = high performance.

I see this time and time again.

And the best thing is, when you rewire people to be securely attached, it’s SO much deeper than doing the band-aid leadership training you get from 99% of vendors.

That stuff becomes obsolete so quickly and requires memory and discipline to apply.

Whereas rewiring someone at the root cause level is far more effective long term - because it sticks, at that neurological level.

It’s MUCH faster to do, MUCH more effective, and MUCH more long term.

Kind of a no brainer to me.

Can you imagine what your company would look like if everyone was securely attached?

People speak directly - but kindly, and with warmth.
Leaders own their mistakes without spiraling or hiding things.
No one’s afraid to say, “I need help,” or “I disagree.”
Meetings are efficient, fast, to the point - rather than drawn out and performative.
Feedback is frequent, and effective, rather than feared and avoided.
Conflict is addressed early and respectfully.
Success is shared.
Burnout is impossible to imagine.
Trust is strong.
People feel valued, seen, safe, heard, and excited to be there.
Work flows naturally and everyone’s in the zone.