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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.)

Motormouth Mayhem

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

In a democracy as robust and rowdy as India’s, politicians ought to remember that their words matter. Sadly, many have taken the liberty of speaking first and thinking later, leading to an almost comedic display of unfiltered rhetoric. The latest spectacle involves Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, who was recently handed a 15-day jail sentence for defaming BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s wife, Medha Somaiya. This is hardly Raut’s first verbal misfire, and he is far from alone. An unsavoury trend has emerged in Indian politics where leaders across the political spectrum spout off inflammatory or simply irresponsible statements without considering the consequences.

 Raut’s 15-day sentence, along with a fine of ₹25,000, stems from his accusations that the Somaiyas were involved in a ₹100 crore public toilet scam. No stranger to controversy, Raut is known for remarks that veer from the provocative to the unparliamentary. During the Lok Sabha campaign, he compared PM Narendra Modi to Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. While colourful language may win applause from a certain type of audience, it seldom aids constructive political discourse. Such barbs erode the already thin veneer of civility in India’s political arena.

BJP’s Kangana Ranaut recently stirred the pot with her comments on the farm laws. After the Modi government had taken the unusual step of repealing these laws following widespread protests, she suggested they should be reconsidered. While the ruling BJP has rightly sought to curtail her, it must question why such voices within its ranks continue to speak out without proper restraint.

 The list of offenders goes on. Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister, Ajit Pawar, in 2013 had made a spectacularly poor attempt at humour during a rally, suggesting that urinating might be the only way to solve a water shortage. His attempt at levity was met with outrage. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, often known for her biting rhetoric and controversial remarks, got in trouble in the aftermath of the RG Kar incident for suggesting that riots in one state could spill over into others. Across the political landscape, irresponsible statements are becoming routine. It is time for Indian politicians to embrace a little discretion. A healthy democracy requires debate and disagreement, not denigration and defamation. One might argue that colourful language and exaggerated claims are part of India’s vibrant political tradition. But there is a fine line between spirited debate and verbal brawling.

Politicians need to hold themselves, and each other, accountable. Public discourse should focus on policy and governance rather than personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric. If political leaders spent as much time on improving their states as they do in crafting creative insults, perhaps India would be better off. To paraphrase Voltaire, while politicians may not always agree with each other’s words, they should at least try to say them responsibly. After all, a sharp tongue may win a headline or two, but in the long run, responsible words build a legacy.

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