The Role of Followers’ Attachment for Organisational Outcomes

In our third Attachment-Informed Leadership (AIL) post, Jonathan Wolf-Phillips and I are directing our attention to the other side of the leader-follower relationship: the link between followers’ attachment and organisational outcomes, particularly as part of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory.

We discuss findings from a 2024 meta-analysis by Warnock and colleagues reporting that:

1️⃣ Individual differences in followers’ attachment were significantly related to various job-related variables;
2️⃣ Followers’ attachment explained unique aspects of professional behavior beyond the “Big Five” personality traits like neuroticism and extraversion;
3️⃣ Trust in the leader was a reliable mediator for LMX in the context of attachment.

The meta-analysis findings align well with the five functions of secure leadership discussed in our second Attachment-Informed Leadership (AIL) post, in which we identified leaders’ ability to provide a Safe Haven and Secure Base as the core driver of followers’ professional satisfaction and psychological health.

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