Attachment style is essential in guiding individuals’ social interactions, especially in adversities. Based on social defence theory, we develop a moderated-mediation model to explore how employees’ attachment style guides employees’ reactions to threatening authoritarian leadership. Through a time-lagged design with 258 employees and their 142 direct leaders, we find that insecure attachment exhibits a positive role in alleviating authoritarian leaders’ negative indirect influence on employee voice via employees’ perceived status. However, secure attachment strengthens authoritarian leaders’ negative influence on employee status perception and voice behaviour. These findings expand the perspective of leadership drawn upon attachment theory and provide practical implications for management.

依恋风格对于指导个人的社交互动至关重要，尤其是在逆境中。基于社会防御理论，我们开发了一个调节中介模型来探索员工依恋风格如何引导员工对威权领导威胁的反应。通过对 258 名员工及其 142 名直接领导者的时滞设计，我们发现不安全依恋在减轻威权领导者通过员工感知状态对员工声音的负面间接影响方面表现出积极作用。然而，安全依恋加强了威权领导对员工地位认知和发言行为的负面影响。这些发现扩展了基于依恋理论的领导视角，并为管理提供了实际意义。