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By:

Rahul Kulkarni

30 March 2025 at 3:32:54 pm

The Boundary Collapse

When kindness becomes micromanagement It started with a simple leave request.   “Hey, can I take Friday off? Need a personal day,” Meera messaged Rohit. Rohit replied instantly:   “Of course. All good. Just stay reachable if anything urgent comes up.”   He meant it as reassurance. But the team didn’t hear reassurance. They heard a rule.   By noon, two things had shifted inside The Workshop:   Meera felt guilty for even asking. Everyone else quietly updated their mental handbook: Leave is...

The Boundary Collapse

When kindness becomes micromanagement It started with a simple leave request.   “Hey, can I take Friday off? Need a personal day,” Meera messaged Rohit. Rohit replied instantly:   “Of course. All good. Just stay reachable if anything urgent comes up.”   He meant it as reassurance. But the team didn’t hear reassurance. They heard a rule.   By noon, two things had shifted inside The Workshop:   Meera felt guilty for even asking. Everyone else quietly updated their mental handbook: Leave is allowed… but not really. This is boundary collapse… when a leader’s good intentions unintentionally blur the limits that protect autonomy and rest. When care quietly turns into control Founders rarely intend to micromanage.   What looks like control from the outside often starts as care from the inside. “Let me help before something breaks.” “Let me stay involved so we don’t lose time.” “Loop me in… I don’t want you stressed.” Supportive tone.   Good intentions.   But one invisible truth defines workplace psychology: When power says “optional,” it never feels optional.
So when a client requested a revision, Rohit gently pinged:   “If you’re free, could you take a look?” Of course she logged in.   Of course she handled it.   And by Monday, the cultural shift was complete: Leave = location change, not a boundary.   A founder’s instinct had quietly become a system. Pattern 1: The Generous Micromanager Modern micromanagement rarely looks aggressive. It looks thoughtful :   “Let me refine this so you’re not stuck.” “I’ll review it quickly.”   “Share drafts so we stay aligned.”   Leaders believe they’re being helpful. Teams hear:   “You don’t fully trust me.” “I should check with you before finishing anything.”   “My decisions aren’t final.” Gentle micromanagement shrinks ownership faster than harsh micromanagement ever did because people can’t challenge kindness. Pattern 2: Cultural conditioning around availability In many Indian workplaces, “time off” has an unspoken footnote: Be reachable. Just in case. No one says it directly.   No one pushes back openly.   The expectation survives through habit: Leave… but monitor messages. Rest… but don’t disconnect. Recover… but stay alert. Contrast this with a global team we worked with: A designer wrote,   “I’ll be off Friday, but available if needed.” Her manager replied:   “If you’re working on your off-day, we mismanaged the workload… not the boundary.”   One conversation.   Two cultural philosophies.   Two completely different emotional outcomes.   Pattern 3: The override reflex Every founder has a version of this reflex.   Whenever Rohit sensed risk, real or imagined, he stepped in: Rewriting copy.   Adjusting a design.   Rescoping a task.   Reframing an email. Always fast.   Always polite.   Always “just helping.” But each override delivered one message:   “Your autonomy is conditional.” You own decisions…   until the founder feels uneasy.   You take initiative…   until instinct replaces delegation.   No confrontation.   No drama.   Just quiet erosion of confidence.   The family-business amplification Boundary collapse becomes extreme in family-managed companies.   We worked with one firm where four family members… founder, spouse, father, cousin… all had informal authority. Everyone cared.   Everyone meant well.   But for employees, decision-making became a maze: Strategy approved by the founder.   Aesthetics by the spouse.   Finance by the father. Tone by the cousin.   They didn’t need leadership.   They needed clarity.   Good intentions without boundaries create internal anarchy. The global contrast A European product team offered a striking counterexample.   There, the founder rarely intervened mid-stream… not because of distance, but because of design:   “If you own the decision, you own the consequences.” Decision rights were clear.   Escalation paths were explicit.   Authority didn’t shift with mood or urgency. No late-night edits.   No surprise rewrites.   No “quick checks.”   No emotional overrides. As one designer put it:   “If my boss wants to intervene, he has to call a decision review. That friction protects my autonomy.” The result:   Faster execution, higher ownership and zero emotional whiplash. Boundaries weren’t personal.   They were structural .   That difference changes everything. Why boundary collapse is so costly Its damage is not dramatic.   It’s cumulative.   People stop resting → you get presence, not energy.   People stop taking initiative → decisions freeze.   People stop trusting empowerment → autonomy becomes theatre.   People start anticipating the boss → performance becomes emotional labour.   People burn out silently → not from work, but from vigilance.   Boundary collapse doesn’t create chaos.   It creates hyper-alertness, the heaviest tax on any team. The real paradox Leaders think they’re being supportive. Teams experience supervision.   Leaders assume boundaries are obvious. Teams see boundaries as fluid. Leaders think autonomy is granted. Teams act as though autonomy can be revoked at any moment. This is the Boundary Collapse → a misunderstanding born not from intent, but from the invisible weight of power. Micromanagement today rarely looks like anger.   More often,   it looks like kindness without limits. (Rahul Kulkarni is Co-founder at PPS Consulting. He patterns the human mechanics of scaling where workplace behavior quietly shapes business outcomes. Views personal.)

Balancing the Books While Staying on Track

Updated: Feb 27

Despite growing revenues, Indian Railways grapples with financial constraints and an evolving transport landscape.

Indian Railways

Indian Railways is the lifeline of the nation, moving millions of passengers and billions of tonnes of freight. Its sheer scale is staggering: 68,000 kilometres of track, over 13,000 passenger trains daily and a workforce of more than a million people. Despite its indispensable role in India’s economy, the financial engine that powers this vast enterprise remains a puzzle of constrained revenues, mounting operational costs and a delicate balancing act between public service and profitability.


Gone are the days when the Railway Budget was an annual spectacle, with politicians announcing new trains like festival giveaways. Since 2017, the railway’s finances have been absorbed into the Union Budget, a move that signified both modernization and a shift towards greater fiscal scrutiny. Yet, old tensions persist. Indian Railways is expected to be both a people’s service and a revenue-generating behemoth, a contradiction leading to a financial model heavily reliant on freight cross-subsidization.


For all its grandeur, the Indian Railways is largely bankrolled by its freight business. In FY 2025-26, freight operations are expected to bring in Rs. 1.88 trillion, accounting for 62 percent of total revenue. Coal alone contributes nearly half of all freight earnings, making the Railways deeply intertwined with India’s energy and industrial ecosystem. Cement, containers and agricultural produce form the next biggest categories, though their revenue share remains modest in comparison.


Freight transport has historically grown at an average of 4 percent annually, and Indian Railways aims to push this higher with increased capacity and efficiency. However, the competitive landscape is shifting. As highways improve and logistics companies capitalize on faster road transport, rail freight is under pressure to reinvent itself. While the Railways offers an economical and environmentally sustainable freight solution, it must find ways to remain competitive against road and air transport that promise speed and flexibility.


Indian Railways’ passenger segment is a paradox - an essential public service that routinely runs at a loss. Revenue from passenger services is expected to touch Rs. 0.92 trillion in FY 2025-26, marking a steady increase. Yet, in the absence of fare revisions, this growth is largely organic. The Railways measures passenger traffic in Passenger Kilometres (PKM), and by this metric, both suburban and long-distance travel are seeing healthy increases.


A telling shift has been the rising preference for air-conditioned travel. AC services now account for 29 percent of total passenger volume, up from just 10 percent a decade ago, signalling an emerging middle class willing to pay more for comfort.


Running one of the world’s largest railway networks is not cheap. The Railways’ revenue expenditure for FY 2025-26 is budgeted at Rs. 2.99 trillion, with nearly 43 percent allocated to salaries, 23 percent to pensions, and a significant chunk to power and fuel. These expenses leave little room for flexibility.


Adding to this is the cost of financing. The Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) borrows from the market to fund rolling stock, and lease payments to IRFC now make up 11 percent of total expenses from 7 percent just two years ago. The operating ratio, a key financial indicator measuring expenses per Rs. 100 of revenue, stands at a daunting 98.4 percent. In simpler terms, for every Rs. 100 earned, the Railways spends Rs. 98.40, leaving an operating surplus so thin that even minor financial shocks could prove disruptive.


The government remains the primary financier of capital investments in Indian Railways. Over the past three years, a significant portion of this has been allocated to manufacturing new rolling stock, expanding and doubling existing lines, and modernizing infrastructure.


However, one area seeing a notable decline is funding for railway public sector undertakings (PSUs). Government capital infusion into railway PSUs has been steadily reduced, reflecting a shift towards greater financial self-reliance for these entities.


The Railways is no longer the unchallenged transportation giant it once was. The rise of efficient highway networks and budget airlines has cut into its passenger market. Indian Railways, despite its scale, is now in direct competition with alternative transport ecosystems that offer greater speed and convenience.


Should the Railways chase profitability or remain a public service at a loss? Political reluctance to raise fares has deepened its reliance on freight cross-subsidization, straining its financial model. With fare rationalization, freight modernization, and cost control on the horizon, tough choices loom. One thing is certain: the train cannot afford to slow down.

(The author is a Chartered Accountant and works at Authomotive Division of Mahindra and Mahindra Limited. Views personal.)

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