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...

min read

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.)

Shardul Thakur: A Masterclass in Mediocrity

Waleed Hussain
Jun 29
3 min read

Shardul Thakur, the self-proclaimed “Lord” of Indian cricket, how you’ve blessed us with your dazzling display of utter incompetence in the first Test against England at Headingley in 2025. The Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy opener was a stage set for heroes, yet you, dear Shardul, chose to audition for the role of court jester. Your performance was a tragicomedy, a spectacular implosion that left Indian fans clutching their heads and England’s batsmen chuckling into their tea cups. Let’s dissect this masterpiece of misery, shall we?

India, under the fresh captaincy of Shubman Gill, arrived in Leeds with a squad brimming with promise. The retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli had ushered in a new era, and Thakur, the so-called all-rounder, was handed a golden ticket to prove his worth. After all, he’d smashed an unbeaten 122 in an intra-squad game, bamboozled a few top-order batsmen with his bowling, and strutted into the Test side as the lone pace-bowling all-rounder. The selectors must have thought they’d unearthed a diamond. Instead, they got a lump of coal.

Let’s start with the batting, shall we? India’s first innings was a run-fest, with Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, and Rishabh Pant piling on centuries to reach 471. Thakur, batting at No. 8, had the perfect platform to showcase his much-vaunted lower-order grit. What did he deliver? A princely 1 run off 8 balls, caught by Jamie Smith off Ben Stokes. Bravo, Shardul! A single run—truly the stuff of legends. Perhaps he was too busy admiring the Headingley clouds to bother with trivialities like scoring runs. In the second innings, with India aiming to set a daunting target, Thakur upped his game to a staggering 4 runs off 12 balls, nicking one to Joe Root off Josh Tongue. Four whole runs! One wonders if he was practicing for the village cricket league instead of a Test match. India’s lower order collapsed like a house of cards, losing 6 wickets for 31 runs, and Thakur’s contribution was as substantial as a puff of smoke.

Now, let’s turn to his bowling, the supposed “golden arm” that breaks partnerships and turns games. In England’s first innings, Thakur bowled 6 overs, conceding 38 runs without a single wicket. His economy rate was a generous 6.33, as if he were hosting a charity run-donation drive for England’s batsmen. Ollie Pope (106) and Harry Brook (99) must have sent him thank-you notes for the buffet of loose deliveries. In the second innings, with England chasing 371, Thakur finally struck, removing Ben Duckett (149) and Harry Brook (0) in quick succession. Two wickets for 51 runs in 10 overs sounds almost respectable—until you realize Duckett was already feasting at 149, and Brook’s dismissal was a fluke down the leg side. Oh, and let’s not forget the hat-trick ball to Ben Stokes, which was about as threatening as a feather duster. England romped home in 82 overs, winning by five wickets, while Thakur’s spells were as impactful as a whisper in a storm.

The irony is palpable. Thakur was picked for his all-round prowess, yet he was neither fish nor fowl. His batting was a non-event, his bowling a masterclass in mediocrity. Former India wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik didn’t mince words, questioning why Thakur was even in the XI if Gill and coach Gautam Gambhir didn’t trust his bowling. He bowled a measly 16 overs across both innings, while Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna toiled for over 20 each. Was Thakur’s run-up marked with an invisibility cloak? Social media was ablaze with fans calling his bowling “filthy” and “awful,” with one user lamenting his “pathetic fielding” and lack of pace. Even Ajinkya Rahane, usually a beacon of diplomacy, urged Gill to give Thakur more responsibility, perhaps out of pity.

The Headingley pitch, with its 9mm grass and early seam movement, was tailor-made for a bowler like Thakur, who’s supposed to swing the ball both ways and extract bounce. Instead, he served up wide deliveries and leg-side gifts, making England’s chase look like a leisurely Sunday drive. When Sunil Gavaskar and Monty Panesar called for Kuldeep Yadav to replace him for the second Test, it was clear Thakur’s Headingley horror show had sealed his fate. Thakur, at 33, is running out of excuses. His 11 Tests have yielded 31 wickets and 331 runs, but Headingley exposed his limitations in brutal fashion.

Here’s a toast to you, Shardul—may your next outing be less of a farce. But don’t hold your breath, folks. This “Lord” has no divine intervention left to offer.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai.)

2 Comments

MaryJane

Oct 14

Man, reading that breakdown of Shardul’s Headingley show was painful but also kind of funny. I came across this site https://batery.pro.in/aviator/ the other day, it’s a game where you have to decide the exact right moment to cash out before everything crashes. And honestly, that’s what Thakur needed — timing and judgment. Instead of knowing when to attack or defend, he just let chances slip, and by the time he did anything, the match was already gone.

Edited

billyy brown

Jul 02

It’s easy to be harsh on someone like Shardul Thakur, but I think calling him a “masterclass in mediocrity” oversimplifies his role. He’s not the star every time, sure, but he's delivered under pressure in ways stats don’t always capture—especially in crunch moments. As a cricket fan who follows both performance and odds, I’ve often found sites like https://bet365.pro.in/app/ helpful for understanding how players are valued by markets, not just fans. While you can't bet there, the data and form analysis give context beyond opinions. Thakur’s numbers might not dazzle, but his utility across formats is hard to ignore. He’s a player teams turn to when they need a bit of everything, and in modern cricket, that has real value—even if…