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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.)

Maharashtra Elections and the Political Foot Soldiers

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Maharashtra Elections and the Political Foot Soldiers

With Maharashtra approaching the elections, Rakesh, a loyalist of a minister from the Konkan region, struggles to find party workers for his boss. Previously, attracting workers with cash and perks was easy, but now they demand high prices. While some remain at the lower end, others have become more sophisticated.

A political party’s survival hinges on its ideology and its foot soldiers. These workers are crucial in shaping the party’s image and influencing voters. Despite their significant role, their contributions are often overlooked, with their efforts only highlighted when beneficial to their leaders. Political parties survive or get decimated electorally when the apparent link between the party and its foot soldier becomes disenchanted or dysfunctional.

Today, the ideology of a political party remains a distant second. The life of an average political worker today bears no similarities with those who laid down their lives for an independent and democratic India. Political workers cutting across all party lines have one thing in common—they do not want a pat on their back by their leader; they not only want political recognition but also a piece of the cake, the cake being power.

A political worker’s success hinges on their connections with mentors and their ability to spot growth opportunities. Equally important is their agility to navigate a competitive, unpredictable environment. Mastering manoeuvering through diverse, self-interested individuals is a complex art that takes years to perfect.


Presenting a few kinds of party workers that continue to be in demand.

The Rural Party Worker: This political worker aligns with leaders from their village or surrounding areas, focussing on rural issues like farming, crop prices, farming land acquisitions, etc. They feel more inclined to the party that shares their concerns, often having limited choice and supporting the parties as their local leaders.

The Urban Party Worker: This worker, spoilt for choice, is more about networking and using the connections to make monetary gains. The *urban party worker may generally be someone from sectors like real estate, education, non-profits, entrepreneurs, and those hailing from creative fields like art, cinema, and theatre.

The Loyal Party Worker: A loyal party worker falls into two types: loyalty to a leader or the party. Leader-loyal workers follow their leader regardless of party affiliation, while party-loyal workers stay committed to the party, no matter the circumstances. The full-time party worker is fully dedicated to the party’s ideology and cause, believing they must give their all. Many male workers, for example, even choose to remain unmarried to devote themselves entirely to their party.

The Part-Time Party Worker: This worker spends evenings at local parties or public relations offices commonly called jan sampark karyalayas, often after a full-time job, and collects funds for events hosted by his leaders. He takes pride in showing off his busy schedule and connections, contributing when possible. Power brokers in this category may switch party loyalty based on the moolah they make or their financial gain.

The ‘Staying on the Sidelines’ Party Worker: This party worker neither has a membership in any party nor is loyal to any one leader or party. Instead, they remain at the side, watching and staying close to leaders and parties that come to power. Their dedication is shortlived and fleeting.

The Election Party Worker: This category is known to become active only during elections, using that time to their full benefit. This is when party workers make the most money possible—through election campaigns and election rallies. Leaders contesting elections are known to spend astronomical amounts during campaigning, and an election party worker is a godsend to them.

The Social Media Party Worker: For this party worker, their mobile phone is their weapon of choice. They are very active on social media, and for their political boss, the party often becomes their project. They are silent observers, and hawks, creating a persona of their political masters and their ambitions screening on the world wide web.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai. Views personal.)

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