ABSTRACT
Childhood developmental issues, such as attachment, may play a large role in an individual’s later leadership development; however, this is a largely unexplored area of research (Popper, 2011). In his classic and award-winning research, Bowlby (1969, 1982) examined the nature of a child’s ties to the mother. This foundational research led to the theoretical formulation of attachment behavior as well as the central and competing instinctual drive for exploratory behavior (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). Specifically, the healthy child, and later healthy adult, engages in both exploratory behavior and attachment behavior. These two human instinctual drives are somewhat intractable because exploratory behavior leads one to mastery of the world whereas attachment behavior leads to the experience of felt security. Both are essential to full human development and may lead to the paradoxical pattern that Bowlby observed. Specifically, his observation was that healthy, secure children were able to act and behave autonomously when circumstances were appropriate and were, alternately, able to reach out for help and support when in the presence of threat, danger, and stressful situations. Bowlby labeled this paradoxical pattern of secure interdependence as self-reliance, which is not to be confused with independence. This chapter explores these competing drives retrospectively through the eyes of executives whom we interviewed in depth about leadership and their own leadership development.
