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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.)

Private banks bigger employers than PSBs

In 10 years, private banks added 6 lakh staffers, PSB’s slashed 1.4 lakh employees

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Mumbai: In a worrisome development, the overall staff strength of private sector banks almost quadrupled in 10 years, while the public sector banks (PSBs) have notched a sharp reduction in the number of employees during the same period, officials said.


Revealing the data, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) Convenor Devidas Tuljapurkar claimed that PSBs recorded a considerable short-fall of clerical and sub-staff between 2013-2024 which has severely hit their routine operations.


In 2013, the clerical cadre strength of PSBs stood at 398,801, but it fell by 151,835 to 246,965 in 2024, while the sub-staff numbers dropped by 59,280 – from 153,628 (2013) to 94,348 (2024).


Citing the figures of the total banking staffers, the UFBU said that the PSB staff strength plummeted by 139,811 – from 886,490 (2013) to 746,679 (2024).


In contrast, the private banks' army of employees ballooned from 229,124 (2013) to 846,530 (2024) – or an increase of 617,406 in just a decade.


“This was because the private sector banks expanded by opening branches in many areas, including semi-urban centres. On the other hand, the PSBs have failed to multiply as they are bogged down by non-performing assets and hence shut down many branches,” Tuljapurkar told ‘The Perfect Voice’.


With the stress and strain of the dwindling employee strength at various levels, the UFBU has demanded adequate recruitments on priority to ensure sufficient staffers in all banks’ branches to reduce the workload on existing employees and help provide satisfactory customer services.


Tuljapurkar added that unlike the private banks, the PSB’s are entrusted with implementing many state-central welfare schemes, extending government benefits to the masses but the yawning staff shortages hampers the public service efforts.


Curiously, UFBU leaders claim that many private sector banks’ employees are actually keen to join the PSBs to escape from job uncertainties, steep performance targets, contractual or hire-and-fire policies in some private banks, disparity in pay and other disadvantages.


However, data released by the Centre in Dec. 2024 shows that the number of branches of all banks grew from 117,990 (March 2014) to 160,501 (Sep. 2024), and of these, 100,686 were located in semi-urban or rural areas.


In order to protest against this and other issues affecting the banking sector, the UFBU had called for its first strike action of 2025 (midnight of March 23 to midnight of March 25).


“On Friday, the Centre held talks with us and the Labour Commissioner and sought one month’s time to resolve our grievances. So, we have postponed the strike agitation for now,” Tuljapurkar said.


Besides the staff recruitment for all cadres, the UFBU wants regularization of all temporary workers, implementing a 5-day work week for the banking industry, put a stop to outsourcing of permanent jobs in banks, and ending unfair labour practices in the banking industry.


Bankers seek withdrawal of a recent government directive on performance review and PLI that threatens job security, creates rifts, discriminates among employees and officers plus undermines the autonomy of PSBs.

The bankers also worry about the safety and security of bank officers/staffers against abuses or assaults by unruly public and local politicians, as was witnessed during the implementation of Maharashtra government’s pet scheme ‘Ladki Bahin’ in mid-2024.


The UFBU has asked the government to fill up the vacant posts of Workmen/Officer Directors in the PSBs, resolve the residual issues pending with Indian Banks Association, amend the Gratuity Act to hike the ceiling to Rs. 25-Lakhs, similar to other government employees along with income tax exemption, and not to levy IT on staff welfare benefits or concessions extended to the bankmen.

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