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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.)

New Order

The wheel of Indian cricket turns with deliberate inevitability. 25-year-old Shubman Gill, fresh from his splendid helming in the long-form Test format, has now been appointed India’s one-day international (ODI) captain, replacing Rohit Sharma. The decision, taken jointly by Ajit Agarkar, India’s chairman of selectors, and Gautam Gambhir, the head coach, suggests a long-term plan designed to prepare India for the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.


The announcement came ahead of India’s upcoming white-ball tour of Australia and marks a clear pivot towards youth and continuity. Gill is now India’s all-format leader in waiting.


Behind the decision lies a quiet revolution. The team of Gambhir and Agarkar - both strong-minded, occasionally combustible, but deeply purposeful - has introduced what one former BCCI official called an ‘Aussie culture’ to Indian cricket. This places the team above the cult of individuals. The days when the national side revolved around its twin stars Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are numbered. The selectors’ message is that India’s future belongs to a new breed, one schooled less in seniority than in sustained form, fitness and leadership potential for 2027.


While 37-year-old Rohit Sharma led the Indian side to the Champions Trophy win and came agonisingly close to World Cup glory, he has long been out of form. While Sharma’s disappointment is evident at the decision, the selectors are not in the business of nostalgia. Likewise, even if Kohli may survive a little longer, he must sense the direction of travel.


The philosophy of Agarkar and Gambhir reflects a long-overdue pragmatic shift from personality-driven cricket to a more institutional model. Much like Australia in the early 2000s, India is seeking to embed a culture where leadership is a process, not a pedestal. By investing in Gill, the board hopes to craft a player fluent in all formats, attuned to global rhythms, and capable of inspiring a new generation with the 2027 World Cup as a horizon.


Gill represents a different archetype from his predecessors. Polished, composed and technically refined, his rise has been steady rather than sensational. His performance during India’s recent tour of England was nothing short of historic. In the five-match Test series, he amassed 754 runs, making him the highest run-scorer of the series and the first Indian to surpass 700 runs in a Test series in England.


The move to make Gill as ODI captain reflects an awareness that the game’s future lies in balance and adaptability. With the calendar crammed by franchise cricket and bilateral series losing lustre, maintaining a motivated team has become harder than ever. In this shifting ecosystem, grooming a young, all-format captain like Gill is a necessary investment in India’s 2027 ambitions.


India’s cricketing past has often been defined by its reverence for experience. By prioritising long-term planning over fan sentiment, the Gambhir–Agarkar duo has shown rare courage in a landscape often dominated by celebrity.

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