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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.)

Drowning in Liquor

Updated: Mar 12


Bhupesh Baghel
Bhupesh Baghel

The spectre of corruption has once again cast a long shadow over the Opposition Congress in Chhatisgarh after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the Bhilai residence of former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, searching for evidence in a money laundering case linked to an alleged liquor scam. The agency’s primary target was Baghel’s son, Chaitanya, who is accused of receiving illicit proceeds from a syndicate that allegedly siphoned off Rs. 2,161 crore.


The raids, which extended to 14 locations, also covered premises linked to Laxmi Narayan Bansal, a close associate of Chaitanya Baghel. The ED alleges that during Baghel’s tenure from 2018 to 2023, an elaborate liquor syndicate flourished in Chhattisgarh. According to investigators, a nexus of politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen illegally controlled liquor sales, skimming off thousands of crores from the state’s excise revenue.


The probe has already ensnared senior Congress figures, including former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma, ex-IAS officer Anil Tuteja, and Arvind Singh. Assets worth Rs. 205 crore have been attached, and investigators claim they have evidence linking Chaitanya Baghel to the proceeds of the scheme.


Predictably, Baghel and the Congress are crying foul. The former chief minister, who was recently appointed Congress general secretary in charge of Punjab, called the raids politically motivated, an attempt by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to silence him. He alleges that ED officials seized Rs. 33 lakh in accounted-for cash and documents exposing corruption by BJP leaders. Congress leaders, including Sachin Pilot, have also accused the BJP of weaponizing central agencies to target political rivals, pointing to the timing of the raids as proof of vendetta politics.


Parties within the opposition INDIA bloc have long accused the Modi government of misusing agencies like the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to weaken the opposition. In recent months, this narrative has gained traction as multiple senior opposition figures – ex-Delhi CM and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, Jharkhand CM and JMM chief Hemant Soren and now Baghel - have found themselves in the ED’s crosshairs. After Kejriwal, Baghel is the second former CM to be embroiled in a liquor scam.


Rather than addressing the allegations, Baghel has chosen to deflect. His office released a statement implying that the raids were an attempt to derail his new role as Congress’s Punjab in-charge. His party, as if on cue, rushed to label the ED’s action as a case of political vendetta on part of the ruling BJP. With its national credibility at rock-bottom, if the Congress were serious about fighting corruption in Chhattisgarh, then it ought support a full-fledged probe rather than resort to street protests and Assembly disruptions.


Yet, even if the crackdown has political motivations, the deeper problem for the opposition is that these allegations are sticking. The liquor scam accusations against Kejriwal’s AAP have already eroded its anti-corruption plank, which stand in tatters after the party’s defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls. Kejriwal’s refusal to directly answer ED summons and his constant attempts to paint himself as a victim ultimately came a cropper. The AAP narrative of being unfairly targeted cut no ice with Delhi’s electorate when placed alongside the overwhelming evidence of manipulated excise policies and financial irregularities.


Now, the same allegations against a key Congress leader further tarnish the INDIA bloc’s image. If the opposition is to take on the BJP effectively, it must not only counter these cases politically but also demonstrate that it is not tainted by the very corruption it seeks to fight.


Baghel’s fate now hangs in the balance. If the ED gathers further evidence linking him or his son to illicit dealings, his political future and the Congress’s standing in Chhattisgarh could be in jeopardy. Voters expect accountability, and if the ED’s investigation into Chhattisgarh’s liquor scam ensures that stolen public money is recovered, it will only reinforce the BJP’s image as the party serious about cleaning up the system.

 

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