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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.)

BJP’s massive mandate delaying govt formation

Updated: Nov 29, 2024

BJP

Mumbai: Contrary to popular perception that the clear majority to Mahayuti has made the way for government formation in Maharashtra easy, the huge mandate to the BJP is actually delaying the process of government formation in the state.


DCM Devendra Fadnavis left for Delhi on Monday where he is likely to have a meeting with union home minister Amit Shah and the detailed program of government formation is likely to be chalked out. However, the key procedures like election of state BJP legislature party leader are yet to be taken place and hence, even if the nitty-gritties of government formation are finalized tonight it will take at least two more days to complete the mandatory procedures.


The biggest hurdle in government formation as of now is the power sharing formula. When the Mahayuti government came to power in the state in 2022, the BJP shared power equally with the Shiv Sena under Eknath Shinde. Though they were almost twice the strength of Shiv Sena in the house, the number of ministerial posts shared between the two parties were equal. In 2023, when NCP under Ajit Pawar joined in, the power sharing formula didn’t change and all the three parties had equal number of ministerial berths in the government.


The BJP had accepted the equal sharing of power with the allies to be able to form the government and keep it running back then. However, the massive mandate of 132 seats to BJP has changed all equations now. State BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule hinted at a possibility, on Monday, when he warned Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (UBT) that if they continue to target Devendra Fadnavis their strength shall further reduce to 2 from the current 20. This is also being interpreted as a veiled warning to the Mahayuti allies that if the power sharing formula is not agreed to, the BJP can once again go in for generating split within opposition parties and attain simple majority easily.


While senior state BJP office bearers, including Bawankule, have been saying that they see no problem in formation of the government, they were not forthcoming on explaining the exact reasons behind the delay in government formation. The Shiv Sena and the NCP have conducted the meetings of the newly elected MLAs and chosen their respective legislature party leaders. However, the BJP seems to be in no hurry to even decide upon the date of such a meeting. Bawankule has announced party's new target of having 1.5 crore new members and has even started mobilizing party apparatus for that by planning extensive meetings of district heads and the 'vistarak's that were sent out to 130 assembly constituencies. However, he hasn't yet announced the date for legislature party meeting. When asked about it, he said, "What is the need to hurry. We are firmly in the saddle. We have numbers on our side. No other party will be able to form government in the state and hence we are taking our time to do so."


Party insiders, however, suggested that the whole power sharing formula is being re-drawn. Apart from the ministerial posts, posts of guardian ministers and existing state-owned corporations, the formula to share local bodies and over a couple of dozen new corporations that were announced just prior to elections too are being considered while devising the new power sharing formula.


In the past two and half years of the government under Eknath Shinde, the Mahayuti had witnessed bitter fights over guardian ministership and other posts. Hence every possibility is being considered before finalizing the formula, sources said.

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