The Squirrel Union
July 16, 2026
I recently visited my parents in the town where I grew up. As is my normal routine, I started the day with a morning walk. They recommended a park about a mile away because it had a new airplane display that was “way up high off the ground.”
Growing up there, I couldn’t imagine where my hometown had found room for an airplane, let alone figured out how to mount one above the ground, considering we still struggle to build sidewalks and fill potholes. My curiosity got the better of me.
It turned out to be the Blue Goose Static Display, a replica honoring an aircraft that earned its reputation flying from the small airport just north of the park. After spending a few minutes admiring it, I headed out on the park’s 1.5-mile walking loop.
As I entered the wooded, shaded section of the trail…it happened.
Squirrels came charging out of the trees.
Not one or two.
Dozens.
They lined both sides of the sidewalk like tiny soldiers awaiting inspection, each one staring at me with complete confidence that I had arrived carrying breakfast. Honestly, it looked like a scene from a low-budget horror movie. These weren’t the lean, energetic squirrels I remembered. They were well-fed, unapologetically overweight, and surprisingly intimidating for creatures weighing less than a pound.
As I worked up the courage to run the gauntlet, the mystery revealed itself. Apparently, every morning several kind elderly ladies walk the trail handing out peanuts. The squirrels had learned the schedule and apparently concluded that every human is now part of the park’s food distribution system.
As I sat on a nearby bench watching this natural disaster unfold, a simple thought struck me.
Organizations create their own squirrels.
When leaders answer every question, solve every problem, approve every decision, and rescue people from every challenge, they unintentionally train dependence. At first, it feels like excellent customer service or supportive leadership. Over time, however, people stop looking for solutions because someone else always has the peanuts.
The leader becomes exhausted.
The team becomes dependent.
Initiative quietly disappears.
Great leaders don’t create organizations that line up waiting to be fed. They build teams that know how to think, solve problems, and find their own peanuts.
The squirrels didn’t become lazy because they were lazy.
The environment trained them.
That’s the lesson I saw that morning.
Leaders often complain, “Nobody takes initiative anymore.” But initiative is frequently an environmental outcome not simply a personality trait. Leaders design the environment.
Those elderly ladies weren’t trying to create an army of overweight squirrels. They were simply being kind.
Likewise, most leaders don’t intend to create dependence. They simply answer one more question, solve one more problem, or approve one more decision. Eventually, those well-intended acts become a culture of expectation.
Culture is the accumulation of what leaders repeatedly reward.
Feed dependence long enough, and dependence becomes normal.
Feed capability, and capability becomes culture.
Further Reading
For those interested in the leadership science behind this metaphor (not the squirrels), these resources provide an excellent starting point.
- Paek, J. J. W., & Kakkar, H. (2025). To Give a Fish or to Teach How to Fish: Examining Leaders’ Autonomy and Dependency Helping Behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 110(12), 1594–1619. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001299
- Ashkenas, R. (2012, June 21). Learned Helplessness in Organizations. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/06/learned-helplessness-in-organizations
- Gallo, A. (2012, July 30). Why Aren’t You Delegating? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/07/why-arent-you-delegating
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.
The Squirrel Union was originally published in Horizon Performance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
