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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.)

Rebels and Realignments in Western Vidarbha’s Chessboard

Rebels and Realignments in Western Vidarbha’s Chessboard

Western Vidarbha has become a hotbed of factionalism and defections, earning a reputation as a land of motormouth leaders. With exactly a month to go for the big fight, the districts of Amravati, Buldhana, and Akola are rife with political intrigue, where former allies have become adversaries, and new alliances are changing the landscape ahead of the Assembly election.


In Amravati, the ever-volatile Bacchu Kadu has emerged as a key disruptor. Once aligned with the ruling Mahayuti, the leader of the Prahar Jan Shakti party is now spearheading a new alliance — the Parivartan Mahashakti Aghadi (in conjunction with farmer leader Raju Shetti and Maratha royal Sambhaji Chhatrapati) — aiming to upend both the ruling Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti and the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). People are fed up with both the BJP and Congress, claimed Kadu claimed recently while declaring he would clear the air on the ‘third front’ on November 4.


Meanwhile, Rajendra Shingne, a five-term legislator from Sindhkhed Raja, has jumped ship from the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to Sharad Pawar’s camp. The seasoned politician, who was sidelined during cabinet selections by Ajit Pawar, has aligned with the MVA, much to the consternation of the Mahayuti.


As the political gears grind towards the Assembly election, the BJP remains strong in this region. But the Mahayuti is plagued with internal rifts. Rumors swirl of more defections, with even former BJP minister Ganesh Naik in talks to join Sharad Pawar’s faction, potentially bringing his son Sandeep along for the ride.


The schism between CM Shinde’s Sena and the BJP could spill over in the Assembly contest if not checked. Soon after the Lok Sabha results, two former Shiv Sena MPs, denied tickets in the general election, had categorically blamed the ruling alliance’s poor performance on the BJP.


Krupal Tumane, previously representing Ramtek, accused BJP state chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule of orchestrating his exclusion, claiming Bawankule pressured Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to replace him with Congress defector Raju Parwe, leading to the constituency’s loss. Bhavana Gawali, dropped from Yavatmal-Washim, suggested similar external pressure forced Shinde to drop her candidacy, reflecting growing tensions between the alliance partners.


Adding to the drama in this region is the unpredictable Rana factor. Navneet Rana, the former Lok Sabha MP from Amravati, had faced a stunning defeat in the Lok Sabha elections at the hands of Congress’s Balwant Wankhade. Her husband, Ravi Rana, a sitting MLA, recently announced that Navneet will step aside from the Assembly race, instead eyeing a Rajya Sabha seat with the backing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This has done little to ease tensions within the Mahayuti, as Bacchu Kadu had actively campaigned against Rana in previous elections. Rana said his wife would be campaigning wholeheartedly for the BJP’s candidate.


Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), another significant factor in this region, particularly Akola, is also navigating rough waters. Once an ally of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and a near-ally of the MVA, Ambedkar snapped ties with the opposition after seat-sharing talks collapsed, deciding to go it alone in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.


The move cost his party dearly in the Lok Sabha results, with its vote share drastically reduced in the constituencies it contested.

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