How well-meaning leadership cultures stunt growth and create dependency.
Modern technology companies often treat individual contributors less like autonomous professionals and more like dependent children. This is rarely malicious and often well-intentioned — a form of overprotection dressed up as “support,” “structure,” or “maintaining morale.” But like an overprotective parent, this instinct to shield people from discomfort, ambiguity, or failure has the opposite effect of what’s intended. It displaces autonomy, dilutes accountability, and rewards compliance over competence.
The harm is twofold. Organizations suffer from slower, less effective execution, but individual contributors pay the greater price. Coddling erodes judgment, confidence, and professional maturity. The damage is reversible if the person later works in an autonomy-driven environment, but the years lost — and the compound growth that could have come from them — can’t be regained.
What began as care becomes a system that keeps people dependent.
Infantilization follows a predictable, self-fulfilling loop. Leaders shield ICs from risk and challenge, limiting opportunities to prove capability. When those opportunities finally come, the IC often stumbles, not from lack of talent, but from lack of practice. Leadership interprets this as proof the contributor isn’t ready, justifying even tighter control. Over time, over-management becomes institutionalized, independence erodes further, and the cycle repeats. What began as care becomes a system that keeps people dependent.
This loop is fundamentally incompatible with adult-to-adult working relationships. It undermines autonomy by default, dual accountability, and results-first cultures. It treats contributors as incapable of holding meaningful, enforceable commitments, which makes it directly at odds with execution frameworks like Collaborate by Contract.
The infantilization trap may keep the organizational machine turning, but it robs people of the chance to reach their potential.
The infantilization trap may keep the organizational machine turning, but it robs people of the chance to reach their potential. That’s the quiet cost — one that’s harder to measure but far more damaging in the long run.
