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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.)

Land Acquisition Act Dominates

Land Acquisition Act Dominates

The Land Acquisition Act (LARR) 2013 marked a significant shift in India’s approach to acquiring land for development purposes. Moving away from the outdated and often criticised practices under the 1894 Act, the new legislation introduced reforms aimed at ensuring fairness, transparency, and consent. It emphasised the need for a more inclusive process, saafeguarding the rights of landowners and communities while facilitating infrastructure and development projects critical to the nation’s growth. But to avoid giving fair compensation, the Maharashtra government started using outdated state laws to acquire land.


States should ideally acquire land in accordance with the LARR Act of 2013, which requires the consent of 70 percent of those affected. In April 2018, the Maharashtra legislature passed an amendment to the LARR Act in the same way that Tamil Nadu did–by inserting Section 105A to exempt the Maharashtra Industrial Development (MID) Act and three other laws from its provisions. In effect, land acquisition for industries, highways, housing and for projects under regional and town plans would not be subject to the LARR Act. It was approved by the President the same month.


Significantly, prior to this, the state was using these older state laws to acquire land. In 2017, the Maharashtra government had issued notices under the Act to acquire land for the Rs 3 lakh crore West Coast oil refinery in Ratnagiri. The project required 15,000 acres from 14 villages, affecting some 30,000 farmers and fisherfolk. The proposal met with resistance from the local farmers, fishermen and residents. A number of farmers led by land activist Ulka Mahajan met the top government officials in Mantralaya in October 2017 and asked why had they used the MID Act when the LARR Act was in force. The officials had no answer. Interestingly, the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had argued that acquiring land under the MID Act was necessary to give a boost to industrialisation in the state. He even went further and incorrectly claimed that it had provisions to seek consent.


The question which was hovering in the minds of the people of Maharashtra was why the LARR Act was amended. There was no logical answer with the government and even ruling BJP. Insiders in the saffron party categorically stated that this move was just to please the party high command. Couple of closest friends of party bigwigs were coming up with mega projects. Through the amendment their entry became effortless. The state leadership thought that this is an excellent opportunity to be in the good books of Delhi bosses.  


Maharashtra had violated the Central Act and the Centre had given its silent consent. What happened in the election is history. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha election BJP received a major setback. Maharashtra is in no mood to relent and is continuing to use the MID Act despite the Madras High Court judgement. Is the state awaiting the wrath first of the voters and then from the court.

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