Attachment-Informed Leadership (AIL)
Leadership is first and foremost a relationship. And it’s not just any kind of relationship, it’s an attachment-based relationship. A relationship in which the leader’s main role is to become an attachment figure for their followers.
Click on the image on the left to check out the Attachment-Informed Leadership (AIL) Substack Page set up by Dr Pascal Vrticka and Jonathan Wolf-Phillips, where they post about the latest theory and science.
So far, the following AIL posts are available:
1️⃣ Why attachment is foundational for effective leadership
2️⃣ The Five Functions of Secure Leadership
3️⃣ The Role of Followers’ Attachment for Organisational Outcomes
4️⃣ The “Caring Advantage”: Parenting as Leadership Training
5️⃣ Attachment-Informed Leadership as Collective Energy Management
6️⃣ The Role of Interpersonal Neural and Bio-Behavioural Synchrony for AIL
7️⃣ The AIL Framework in Full: Our First Preprint Is Now Available
8️⃣ What a Preprint Is, and What Happens Next
🚨 The Attachment-Informed Leadership (AIL) Framework in Full: 🚨
Our First Preprint Is Now Available
Leadership research has produced a large and still-growing catalogue of styles, among them transformational, authentic and servant leadership, but no biologically grounded principle from which those styles might be derived or organised. We propose that attachment, understood through contemporary social neuroscience, can serve as that principle.
Human beings do not regulate the demands of a challenging environment as isolated individuals but relationally, treating the resources of trusted others as functionally continuous with their own, and attachment is the mechanism through which this relational management of a finite bioenergetic budget is organised under stress. The leader-follower relationship is structurally suited to operate as an attachment relationship, and the quality of leadership depends substantially on how reliably a leader fills that role.
We develop this claim into an attachment-informed leadership (AIL) framework, following a single line of reasoning from social connection and health, through social allostasis, to attachment and caregiving, and extending it into predictive regulation, interpersonal synchrony and the transfer of caregiving capacities from parenting to leadership. Read in these terms, leadership is first and foremost an attachment-based relationship in which the leader’s central task is to become a reliable attachment figure for those they lead.
Purpose of AIL
Background
The idea to formulate an overarching attachment-informed leadership (AIL) framework arose from discussions over two years between attachment-informed leadership specialist Jonathan Wolf-Phillips and social neuroscientist Dr Pascal Vrticka, about the following observations by attachment researchers Mario Mikulincer and Philip Shaver, in a recent book (Attachment Theory Expanded, 2023; emphasis added):
Considering all the forces that work against sensitivity, responsiveness, and security, as well as the tragic results of attachment insecurities, we see an enormous need for evidence-based interventions guided by inspiring and hope-sustaining research, showing that it is possible to cultivate sensitive responsiveness and mentalisation, and move attachment-insecure people toward greater felt-security (p. 335).
We do not have good research evidence regarding the ability of an attachment-informed approach to leadership and organisational development to measurably contribute to members’ felt security, health and well-being, and job performance (p. 290).
Vision
The vision for AIL is to make a significant contribution to the evidence-base for how an attachment-informed approach to leadership can measurably contribute to increases in felt security, job performance, and overall health and well-being – for both leaders and those they lead.
Core task
The core task of AIL is to develop and share content, based on specialist research related to attachment-informed leadership, its scientific underpinning, and its application (e.g., on-line and in-person speaking, non-academic and academic publishing).
Research opportunities
We are currently inviting interested individuals and organisations to participate in exploratory discussions about contributing to this emerging field of academic study.
Competing Interests
Jonathan Wolf-Phillips is founder and director of New Leadership Limited, a commercial leadership consultancy whose activities relate to the AIL framework. Pascal Vrticka’s role is scientific and he has no commercial interest in New Leadership Limited.
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