top of page

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.)

RR backstabbed me by ordering open inquiry into irrigation: Ajit

Ajit

Pune: Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Tuesday alleged he was “backstabbed” by his close colleague and then home minister R R Patil who ordered an open inquiry against him in the alleged multi-crore irrigation scam.


Pawar claimed a file mentioning Patil’s remarks ordering an inquiry was shown to him by BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis after he became chief minister in 2014.


Pawar made these claims while addressing a rally for the Nationalist Congress Party candidate Sanjay Patil who is in the fray against the late Patil’s son Rohit from Tasgaon in Sangli district.


“Allegations were levelled against me in an irrigation scam. Attempts were made to defame me. It was decided to level an allegation of Rs 70,000 crore scam in an irrigation project. The total expenditure of salaries was Rs 42,000 crore in the project and allegation was made about irregularities of Rs 70,000 crore,” Pawar claimed.


The actual expenditure for the project amounted to Rs 43,000 crore but a case was made to show that there was a scam of Rs 70,000 crore, Pawar said.


Pawar was Water Resources Development Minister during 1999-2009 when the Congress-NCP combine was in power in Maharashtra. He had also served as chairman of Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation, which had cleared irrigation projects in which alleged irregularities were alleged.


“A file was prepared and forwarded to the home department (headed by R R Patil). He approved an open inquiry against me and mentioned it in the file note. This was a pure case of back-stabbing. I became very upset as he (Patil) was a close colleague,” he claimed.


The NCP (undivided) subsequently withdrew the support to the Prithviraj Chavan-led government and the President’s rule was imposed, he said.


“The then governor refused to sign on the file (for open inquiry) and stated that let the new CM sign it,” he claimed.


Notably, Sharad Pawar-led NCP withdrew the support to then Prithviraj Chavan-led government in September 2014 following the announcement of breaking of ties with Congress, just days ahead of the assembly elections.


“When the Devendra Fadanvis-led government came to power, he signed the file and later called me. He said that the file was awaiting the CM’s signature. He told me that it was RR Patil who opened the inquiry and showed me his signature on the file. I was very upset as he (Patil) was a close colleague,” Pawar claimed.


Notably, Maharashtra’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) gave a clean chit to Ajit Pawar in the multi-crore Vidarbha irrigation scam after the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress was sworn in the state on November 28, 2019. R R Patil had served as the state home minister for a considerable time during the tenure of the Congress-NCP governments from 2004 to 2014.


Pawar declares assets worth Rs 45.37 cr

Ajit Pawar, contesting assembly polls from Baramati, has movable assets worth more than Rs 8.22 crore, while his immovable assets were valued at Rs 37.15 crore, according to an affidavit submitted by him before the Election Commission.


His movable assets include two cars - Toyota Camry, Honda CRV -- a tractor, silver articles, FDs, shares and bonds, among others, as per the affidavit submitted by him along with nomination papers from the seat in Pune district for the November 20 polls.


His spouse Sunetra Pawar, a Rajya Sabha member, owns movable assets worth Rs 14.57 crore, while the value of immovable assets in her name stood at Rs 58.39 crore, according to the document.


Ajit Pawar’s main rival in the elections is his nephew Yugendra Pawar, the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) candidate who is making his electoral debut from the family seat.


Yugendra Pawar, who also filed his nomination papers on Monday, has declared movable assets worth Rs 39.79 crore.


The NCP (SP) candidate owns immovable assets valued at Rs 10.79 crore, according to an affidavit submitted along the nomination papers.


His immovable assets include a flat measuring more than 2,000 sq ft in Mumbai and land parcels in Mulshi and Baramati in Pune district, according to the document.

Comments

bottom of page