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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.)

Is Rohit Pawar being groomed for a bigger role?

Updated: Oct 25, 2024

A CLOSE CONNECT WITH THE ELECTORATE AND HIS GREAT UNCLE’S FAITH IN HIM MAKE ROHIT PAWAR A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH IN THE NCP(SP)


Rohit Pawar

Mumbai: Rohit Pawar has the right credentials---he’s young, is popular in his constituency, delivers impactful speeches, has stayed loyal to his great uncle Sharad Pawar after the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) split and bears the Pawar surname.


When Pawar senior asked Rohit to sit beside him during a press conference at his Modi Baug residence in Pune last year, it was a signal to party workers and the people at large that he had found a successor in the third generation of his family to lead the party. “I don’t have to worry about my old colleagues who have joined the other party. My priority is to create new leadership for Maharashtra,” he had said then. Ever since, Rohit’s role and popularity in the party are growing.


During the Lok Sabha elections this year, he toiled to ensure a victory for his aunt Supriya Sule while politely sidestepping questions about his other aunt and Sule’s political opponent, Sunetra Pawar.


Sauve and a son-of-the-soil together, Rohit has worked his way into the politics of Baramati by getting elected to the Zilla Parishad in 2017. Two years later, his uncle announced his candidature to the Karjat-Jamkhed constituency and Rohit won with a handsome margin. He showed no hurry to jump into a ministerial responsibility unlike some of his peers and chose to continue his work at the grassroots level.


Rohit is yet another member of the large and closely knit Pawar family. His grandfather Dr Appasaheb Pawar was Sharad Pawar’s older brother. Rohit’s parents, too, are closely involved in the social and educational activities of Baramati with strong connections with the people. His father Rajendra is chairman of Baramati Agro that provides employment to hundreds of people with a boost to the rural economy. He also heads the Agricultural Development Trust in Baramati that is at the forefront of cutting-edge research in the fields of agriculture and provides assistance and technical know-how to agriculturists. Rohit’s mother has struck a chord with the women of Baramati and of her son’s electoral constituency by running hostels, providing sanitary care and working for the upliftment and empowerment of rural women.


Encouraged by his great uncle, Rohit undertook a Yuva Sangharsha Yatra which began from Pune in October last year but suspended it in solidarity with the demand for Maratha reservations. It was an attempt to engage with the youth across the state especially in the western Maharashtra belt which has been the party bastion.


Rohit’s elevation in the party is believed to have ruffled Ajit’s feathers especially after he picked Rohit for the Maharashtra legislative party elections in 2019. Party leaders say that it was clear that the senior Pawar favoured Rohit over Ajit’s son Parth who had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls. “Ajit Pawar had made enemies within the party’s senior leadership. Rohit doesn’t come with that baggage and he’s not spoken against his uncle Ajit either. He is more acceptable to party workers for his more approachable manner of working,” says a party insider. 


Ajit’s departure has made way for a bigger role for Rohit. He’s seen to be dynamic but not aggressive; is softer in his approach and interactions. His elevation to the president’s role of the Maharashtra Cricket Association, following in Pawar senior’s footsteps, is also seen as a stamp of approval.

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