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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.)

Political Realignment

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

As Maharashtra’s Assembly elections inch ever closer, the political landscape is undergoing rapid shifts. The Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), led by Mahadev Jankar, has formally exited the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti alliance, delivering a significant blow to the coalition. Jankar, an influential Dhangar leader who once vowed to dislodge the formidable Pawar clan from their stronghold in Baramati, is now positioning himself as an independent player, having announced his intent to field candidates in all 288 constituencies.


This development underscores the growing disgruntlement among smaller parties within the NDA, exemplified by Jankar’s grievances over seat allocation and perceived neglect. While he may be a ‘lesser’ ally for the BJP, Jankar’s influence among the Dhangar community in western Maharashtra cannot be underestimated. His bold challenge to NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule during the 2014 Lok Sabha contest in Baramati saw Ms. Sule winning narrowly, but the outcome showcased Jankar’s potential to disrupt entrenched political hierarchies.


Ahead of the Lok Sabha election this year, NCP (SP) patriarch Sharad Pawar had attempted to woo parties like Jankar’s Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP) to discomfiture the Mahayuti. Pawar senior has offered Mr. Jankar the chance to contest the Madha Lok Sabha seat which the latter had cordially turned down. But the offer was indicative of the fact that Jankar, hitherto a sworn political nemesis of Sharad Pawar, was now more than willing to bury the hatchet.


It will be a supreme irony if Jankar, who had once vowed to destroy Baramati, now ends up on Sharad Pawar’s side, aiding the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) directly or indirectly while denting the BJP and the Mahayuti.


The BJP has long courted the Dhangar community, initially luring its leaders like Jankar with promises of reservation ahead of the 2014 Assembly election. The BJP had even inducted Jankar into the state cabinet and commissioned the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to study the community’s socio-economic conditions. In 2017, then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis sought to rename Solapur University after Punyashlok Ahilyabai Holkar, the 18th-century Maratha queen revered by the Dhangars.


Despite these placatory gestures, the Dhangar community remains in the Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes (VJNT) category and has now intensified its demands for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status, particularly in light of the Maratha quota agitation, thus putting the Mahayuti in a fix. The BJP has already lost an erstwhile NDA constituent in form of Raju Shetti’s Swambhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS). Shetti, a prominent voice for farmers in the ‘sugar heartland’ in western Maharashtra, has oscillated between alliances and has now opted to fight independently. With the loss of key smaller partners, the upcoming election will be a tough test of the BJP’s ability to address regional identities and local issues independently.

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