Securing success: Exploring attachment dynamics and psychological safety for adaptive behaviors in a military context

Providing safety is a key function for leaders for those under their command in a military context, and research to date has focused on various aspects of leaders’ personalities and leadership styles to investigate the outcomes for their followers. The present research aims to complement this view by adopting a follower-centric approach and exploring the individual and team-level effects of attachment and psychological safety. Drawing on attachment theory, we developed and tested a model that explicates how employees’ attachment projections are mediated by psychological safety to influence adaptive behaviors and team performance positively. We collected multi-source survey data from a Navy department to test our model. Our findings suggest that attachment to leaders can indirectly enhance adaptive behaviors through individual psychological safety. This research underscores the critical role of attachment dynamics and resulting safety perceptions in shaping adaptive behaviors among military personnel, emphasizing their significance as social resources.