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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.)

Once a Cong citadel, now a battleground for rival Senas

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

rival Senas

Mumbai: Maharashtra’s coastal belt, stretching from Mumbai to the southernmost district of Sindhudurg, was once a Congress citadel, but the party lost ground to the undivided Shiv Sena over the years.


The coastal Konkan belt’s economy was known to be dependent on money orders sent from Mumbai, where most of its residents migrated for work and business after Maharashtra achieved statehood in 1960. But the situation is no longer the same.


The region accounts for 75 of the total 288 state assembly seats, including 36 in Mumbai, and is expected to play a key role in deciding which coalition – ruling Mahayuti or opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – governs Maharashtra after the November 20 polls.

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Former CM and BJP Lok Sabha MP from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Narayan Rane, who hails from the picturesque region, told PTI that Konkan has now become self-sufficient, thriving on exports of fish, mangoes and cashews.


“Youths are embracing entrepreneurship. Infrastructure has also expanded with enhanced air and rail connectivity. There is sufficient electricity and water. The region has seen tremendous economic transformation,” said Rane, who won as Shiv Sena MLA from Malwan in Sindhudurg for the first time in 1990.


“I want to develop Ratnagiri as a tourism district, similar to Sindhudurg,” said the 72-year-old politician credited with establishing and expanding the undivided Shiv Sena before quitting the party. State minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who was the lone Shiv Sena MLA to get elected on “mashal” (flaming torch) symbol from Mumbai (Mazgaon seat) in 1985, said the political realignments of the last five years would have a greater impact on urban areas than on rural ones.


Bhujbal, now with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, pointed out that the undivided Shiv Sena and the Congress were once bitter rivals in the region. But after the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena, Thane district, part of the Konkan division and political turf of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, will see a clash between the rival factions, he opined. “I feel more than 30 Independents will be elected (all over Maharashtra) and they will hold the key to the next government formation,” Bhujbal maintained.


In the mid-1980s, the Shiv Sena, which started out as a son-of-the-soil party, adopted Hindutva and became a key rival of the Congress which was guided by “secularism”. By the 1980s, Shiv Sena had made major gains in Mumbai, and by 1990, it formed an alliance with the BJP on the common platform of Hindutva. In 1995, the Shiv Sena-BJP formed a government.


This partnership reshaped the politics of the region, where the Shiv Sena continued to grow at the expense of Congress.


Stalwarts like Hashu Advani, Ram Naik, and Ram Kapse played pivotal roles in the BJP’s success. Shiv Sena leaders like Chhagan Bhujbal, Leeladhar Dake, and Pramod Navalkar helped the party grow during the 1980s.


In 2014, riding on the “Modi wave”, the BJP made inroads into Mumbai and its surrounding regions.

Data shows the Congress’s slide in Konkan began in 1978. The Shiv Sena expanded itself at the cost of Communists and other smaller parties opposed to the Congress to emerge as a rival to the Grand Old Party. In 1962, the coastal belt had 57 assembly seats, a number which has now gone up to 75. From 1962 to 1978, the Congress held sway in Mumbai and other parts of Konkan, while non-Congress space was occupied by the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), Praja Socialist Party, RPI and Socialist Party of India.


Literary stalwart Acharya Pralhad Keshav Atre was elected from Dadar in Mumbai as an independent. In 1972, Pramod Navalkar of the Shiv Sena won from Girgaum in Mumbai with Congress support, while Mrinal Gore was elected on a Socialist Party of India ticket from Malad in the metropolis.


Since 2014, the BJP has emerged as the dominant force in the coastal belt. In 2019, political dynamics shifted yet again, with the once-rivals Shiv Sena and Congress becoming allies. This was followed by a split in the regional saffron party with the Shiv Sena (UBT) coming into existence.


-PTI

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