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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.)

From Wheel to Window Seat: The Surprising Perks of Public Transit

Updated: Oct 30, 2024

Public Transit

Seven years ago, I migrated to the city of dreams and settled down in Thane. After traveling regularly to south Mumbai for an initial period, since last one year I had been driving my XUV700 to the Kandivali office of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited. While my car, renowned for its smooth drive, helped me cover the distance, the relentless traffic and poor road conditions slowly eroded the pleasure—and even began to impact my health. The city’s inadequate road infrastructure, compounded by sluggish Metro construction, has been a glaring problem for years, with improvements seeming to rest on road developments from the era of Nitin Gadkari over two decades ago.


In the last several years, several startups have introduced business models that provide comfortable commuting solutions and have gained popularity amongst the daily office commuters. Compared to cab-aggregator services like Ola or Uber, these solutions are less expensive and more comfortable. I have been travelling through Cityflo bus service for the past one month to avoid traffic hassles. This realignment was done to overcome the extra fatigue and was not a calculated call much thought about. Surprisingly this change turned out to be a blessing in disguise to me.


Travelling by bus has added to my daily travel time and I had to realign my morning routine to ensure that I start early by at least 15 minutes to catch the bus. It was never an easy task for me as it demanded efficient time management. Further I did not want to compromise on my vital morning rituals like my physical workout, newspaper read and daily puja.


My first two travel days were altogether boring as I had no task to keep myself engaged while traveling. My inability to read the financial daily Business Standard was long haunting me. Suddenly I realized that I have created a sweet spot for myself to fulfill this task. Within a couple of days, occupying my seat and reading Business Standard became my standard protocol during my office travel.


This has facilitated increased academic awareness and enhanced engagements in office discussions on contemporary topics. This routine has helped me reframe my travel time into a valued pocket for learning and reflection. By nightfall, I trade the reading light for audio content, engaging with scholars like Dr. Vikram Sampath and J. Sai Deepak, or enjoying the music of legends like Lata Mangeshkar and Pt. Hari Prasad Chourasia. The adjustment has transformed my commute into a restorative experience, and my family has also noted the positive change.


All these days I struggled to find quality time to pursue my interests, but public transportation ensured that I was left with a couple of hours each day for my own well-being. Assuming that on a third of the occasions I still opt to drive, this still translates into 40 productive working man-days on an annualized basis, which would facilitate productive engagement to pursue my own interests.


That reminds me of a famous quote by Colombian President Gustavo Petro that “a developed country is not a place where the poor own cars, but where the rich people use public transport.” I am not sure what had prompted him to say so, but there is certainly an essence in what he has quoted. Developed countries are not just functions of higher Per Capita Income. Productive usage of resources, efficient time management by all the stakeholders, and higher happiness index of the common citizens go a long way in transforming the country into a developed nation. Effective time management and pursuit of personal passion play a key role in transforming individuals into an impactful performer. Reliable public infrastructure and efficient transportation also contribute to environmental sustainability. Altogether these changes, improve the quality of life, and result in enhanced economic power of the country. I unexpectedly realized that by opting to travel by public transportation, I am contributing towards the development of India.


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

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