“My Toy!” Syndrome
Scarcity Leadership And The Hidden Cost Of Control
An original essay for Drucker+, by Maya Guice - Maya earned an M.B.A. from the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, where she now serves as Vice-Chair on the Advisory Board of Directors.
Plenty has been written about effects of scarcity mindset in leadership—I’ve given its most destructive form a name: “My Toy” Syndrome. It’s the instinct leaders have to hoard vision, resources, and decisions as if only they can be trusted to manage them. While it often springs from fear or insecurity, the cost is enormous. This instinct shrinks teams, silences voices, and mistakes dissent for disloyalty. More than a mindset, it’s a culture that requires courage to undo.
“ “My Toy” Syndrome. It’s the instinct leaders have to hoard vision, resources, and decisions as if only they can be trusted to manage them.”
I had a friend in preschool named James. Whenever it was time to draw, he’d reliably pull out a big box of crayons—but not just any crayons—sparkly crayons. Crayons so special, he claimed, only he could use them. “These are my crayons,” he’d say, knowing full well how much a shimmering purple would transform the creatures on my page. In his mind, only he was careful enough, creative enough, or capable enough to wield them. So, every day, I sat there with my plain crayons, watching him hoard the sparkle — realizing, even then, that as much as he wanted to impress me, the only thing this experience taught me was that James was not much of a friend.
From the Playground to the Boardroom
On the playground, everyone knows the kid with “my toy” syndrome—the one who clutches their favorite truck or doll, convinced only they know how to play with it properly.
It’s something we laugh at in children, but have you ever considered how often the same behavior shows up in leadership? When the business takes a downturn, instead of sharing responsibility, executives clutch their vision, their resources, and their team like fragile toys, convinced that sharing would put everything at risk. But this scarcity-driven control doesn’t create safety; it creates fragility.
What feels like protection—a way to preserve quality or maintain control—is really fear and insecurity in disguise. And these qualities don’t build culture; they starve it. By hoarding instead of sharing, leaders diminish their team’s capacity to only what they themselves can carry, suffocating culture, stalling growth, and defeating the very purpose of building a team to begin with.
From the Playground to the Boardroom
I once had a boss who embodied this. Market pressures were mounting, competition was fierce, budgets were shrinking—and instead of leaning into his team, he pulled everything closer. Marketing, sales, operations—suddenly, he was the lone expert in them all. Meetings became monologues. Decisions that could have been made in a day dragged on for weeks, waiting for his approval. His team—people hired for their expertise—were sidelined. And because he was so busy talking, he failed to realize that his team already had solutions for the problem at hand.
The result? Bottlenecks, layoffs, falling revenue, and a culture where offering an alternative point of view could get you uninvited from the meeting entirely. And herein lies the problem: The moment fear convinces a leader they’re the only expert, organizations stop growing and begin to contract.
This is what “my toy” leadership looks like. It’s not protection—it’s paralysis. The instinct to control shrinks the organization to the size of one person’s capacity. Instead of scaling impact, the team contracts to meet the limits of the leader’s own fear.
From the Playground to the Boardroom
On the playground, everyone knows the kid with “my toy” syndrome—the one who clutches their favorite truck or doll, convinced only they know how to play with it properly.
It’s something we laugh at in children, but have you ever considered how often the same behavior shows up in leadership? When the business takes a downturn, instead of sharing responsibility, executives clutch their vision, their resources, and their team like fragile toys, convinced that sharing would put everything at risk. But this scarcity-driven control doesn’t create safety; it creates fragility.
What feels like protection—a way to preserve quality or maintain control—is really fear and insecurity in disguise. And these qualities don’t build culture; they starve it. By hoarding instead of sharing, leaders diminish their team’s capacity to only what they themselves can carry, suffocating culture, stalling growth, and defeating the very purpose of building a team to begin with.
Collaboration Isn’t Optional
“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I.’ … They don’t think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’; they think ‘team.’”
Peter Drucker was right: Leadership is not about control. It’s about creating conditions for others (your team) to succeed. Collaboration isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s the multiplier. A single leader’s expertise, no matter how deep, is finite. A team’s collective intelligence, on the other hand, expands capacity in every direction.
Without collaboration, decisions bottleneck, innovation stalls, and trust erodes. With it, problems are solved faster, ideas combine into breakthroughs, and organizations become resilient. As Drucker put it: “No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it; it must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”
Consider Boeing’s ongoing struggles. Once admired for engineering excellence, the company’s rush to cut costs and protect margins after the 737 MAX crisis reflected a scarcity mindset at the top. Instead of empowering engineers and listening to dissenting voices, leadership tightened control and downplayed safety concerns. The result was not greater efficiency but catastrophic loss of trust—from regulators, airlines, and the flying public. Where vision could have been shared, it was hoarded—and the consequences, in this case, were deadly.
Here are four ways frailty shows up under “my toy” leadership:
Capacity Collapse
When every decision routes through one person, the team slows to that individual’s pace. Projects stall, momentum evaporates, and the leader becomes the bottleneck instead of the amplifier.Trust Erosion
Fear-driven leaders believe they’re protecting quality, but what they’re signaling is mistrust. When employees feel untrusted, they disengage. They sit with their “plain crayons” and stop taking initiative because they feel their effort won’t matter.Tunnel-Vision Trap
When leaders hoard decisions, they don’t just stifle creativity—they miss the better answers. Leaders who refuse to listen end up clinging to old logic while overlooking new solutions sitting right in front of them. Convinced their view is the only correct one, they dismiss input that doesn’t match.Organizational Instability
When control is centralized in one person, the system becomes brittle. One absence, one blind spot, one mistake—and the entire structure falters. Real resilience comes from distributing responsibility, not hoarding it.
“No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it; it must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”
From Scarcity to Scale
If keeping the toy locked away strangles growth, passing it around makes the whole game more fun. And far more productive.
Take Netflix — a company lauded for a fast, innovative, resilient, and market driving culture. The streaming giant has long been explicit about how it avoids “my toy” leadership. In its famous culture deck, the company states plainly: “People Over Process: You get better outcomes when employees have the information and freedom to make decisions for themselves. We hire unusually responsible people who thrive on this openness and freedom.”
Rather than hoarding authority, Netflix leaders share information broadly and empower individuals to act. The expectation is not blind obedience but informed judgment. Decisions don’t crawl through layers of approvals; they move quickly because trust isn’t conditional; it’s woven into the culture itself. That’s how Netflix managed to pivot from DVDs to streaming and then into original content—transformations that reshaped an entire industry.
The proof is in the outcomes: a culture that scales trust scales results. This approach — the “sandbox” principle, if you will — is the opposite of “my toy” syndrome. Netflix demonstrates how abundance, through transparency and trust, scales both capacity and creativity.
Drucker believed that “the task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, making our weaknesses irrelevant.” That alignment only happens when leaders share—share vision so people know where they’re going, share information so they can act with confidence, and share decision-making so they can grow. Great leadership isn’t about being the only expert in the room—it’s about creating the conditions for everyone to advance.
Drucker also reminds us that teams are not an ideal but a fact of organizational life. Results happen only when leaders focus on “we,” not “I,” all the time — not just in the press release. It’s the essence of purpose-driven leadership: aligning the team around a shared mission rather than a single ego.
“The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, making our weaknesses irrelevant.”
This is what happens when leaders choose abundance over scarcity:
Shared Vision Expands Capacity — When leaders articulate where they’re going and invite others into that story, the team’s ability to execute multiplies. Decisions (and subsequently output) move faster because everyone knows the “why” behind the work.
Trust Unlocks Engagement — Trust is essential for productivity. When leaders demonstrate confidence in their teams, people step up. They bring forward new ideas, push for better solutions, and stay invested because they know their contribution matters.
Shared Decision-Making Fuels Growth — Sharing decision-making embeds continuous learning into the organization, because every outcome—good or bad—creates data, reflection, and growth. The most effective leaders don’t hoard approvals—they give space for others to decide, which builds both competence and confidence.
Distributed Ownership Builds Resilience — An organization is fragile when everything runs through one person; It’s resilient when responsibility is spread. By giving everyone a stake, leaders ensure the company can adapt, recover, and keep moving when expected challenges arise. And unexpected challenges are inevitable.
The Courage to Share
On a final note, Drucker often reminded managers that “all results are on the outside.” What matters isn’t how much control a leader feels inside their office—it’s what the organization produces in the world. Results are the sum of many hands, many minds, and many perspectives.
Abundance leadership isn’t about being soft or hands-off. It’s about creating the conditions—clear goals, trust, and shared purpose—that let others carry the load. While scarcity reduces everything to one person’s limitations; abundance scales it to the team’s collective strength.
This is what courage in leadership really looks like: not clinging to control, but cultivating change orientation—equipping teams to adapt, recover, and thrive no matter what comes next.
So do yourself (and your team!) a favor: put the toy down. Let someone else pick it up. You might be surprised by how much bigger, brighter, and more profitable your sandbox becomes.
“All results are on the outside.”
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About the Author - Maya Guice
Maya Guice is the Founder of Panakin Studios, an interdisciplinary think tank and content studio that works with entrepreneurs to produce new stories for smart audiences.
Before launching Panakin, Maya worked at BRC Imagination Arts—a global experience design and production company that partners with brands like Diageo, Ford, The Las Vegas Raiders, and NASA to transform brand and cultural stories into human experiences. As Director of Strategy, she co-developed and oversaw the firm’s short- and long-term marketing, positioning, and business strategy, managing all brand and growth-related activities including content, PR, events, awards, and strategic partnerships. She also produced and hosted “Masters of Storytelling,” BRC’s podcast featuring conversations with storytellers from across the creative spectrum, which won multiple Signal Awards for Best Host and Best Writing in 2024.
Maya is frequently invited to host events, give talks, and moderate panels, including appearances at SXSW (2025), Content Marketing World (2024), SEGD Sports + Entertainment (2024), LDI (2023/2024), and the World Experience Summit (2023/2024), among others.
In 2016, Maya earned an M.B.A. from the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, where she now serves as Vice-Chair on the Advisory Board of Directors. Shortly after graduating, she relocated to Berlin, carving out a niche as a brand and business strategist for creative agencies and production companies. She also taught courses in Business Administration to undergraduate and graduate business students at the Berlin School of Business and Innovation.
