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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 neglected, voters in high-rise buildings on candidates’ list

Updated: Nov 15, 2024

Bala Nandgaonkar

Mumbai: In the last four months, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Bala Nandgaonkar has visited the high end Parel based Ashok Tower four times holding interactions with the residents.

Ashok Tower has more than 600 families and would be hosting a polling booth in its premises. Nandgaonkar is currently the MNS candidate from the Shivadi constituency where he is fighting a pitched battle against Shiv Sena candidate Ajay Chaudhari.


This is the part of the current trend where the candidates are busy wooing the tower residents. This is especially due to the twin factors....increased participation in voting by the residents living in skyscrapers and shrinking winning margins where a couple of votes are capable of tilting the scales.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) in its initiative to boost the voting process has allowed 709 housing societies to host polling booths in their own premises.


Sarika Poddar, secretary, Ashok Tower Housing society who was instrumental for following up with the ECI to set the booth said that this move will boost the voting percentage in high rises. “The residents of high rises are now becoming increasingly assertive and are demanding accountability from the local representatives. Due to the booths in the society premises, we will see more residents exercising their franchise this time,” said Poddar. There are more than 1300 voters in Ashok Tower.


Dhaval Shah, chairman, Lokhandwala-Oshiwara Citizens’ Association, consisting over 150 societies described it a consolidation of the middle and rich class voters. “We have issues like conveyance of buildings, parking, water shortage and traffic congestion. The politicians who neglected us till date are now wooing us with gusto,” said Shah.


For years, politicians focused exclusively on slum and chawl voters and hardly looked at the towers.

In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) led in 158 assembly segments in Maharashtra while the ruling Mahayuti led in 125. The winning margins of 16 seats of MVA were less than 5000 votes while in Mahayuti, 15 seats have less than 5000 margin.


In fact, Shinde Shiv Sena candidate Ravindra Waikar won the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat by a meager 48 votes in a nail-biting finish.


Waikar’s wife Manisha who is fighting the Jogeshwari assembly seat from Shinde Sena said that they have always been amenable to the residents of high rises. “We had set up Matoshree club, the first of its kind recreation club in Western suburbs for the people of this area. In addition, we set up aerobics centre as well as state of art gymnasiums for them,” said Manisha Waikar.


There has been mushrooming of towers across Mumbai due to the large-scale revamp taking place where chawls and small buildings are replaced by high rises. In addition, there has been upward mobility of the residents to these skyscrapers.


Surendra Srivastava-National President, Loksatta movement and Board member, Foundation of Democratic Reforms said such assertiveness is fuelled by the social media. “The middle class has created a narrative where they are demanding that their voice be heard. The politicians can no longer neglect this section which is increasingly demanding answers from the politicos,” said Srivastava.

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