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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.)

Solo, alone or lonely?

Solo, alone or lonely

Just before the din of elections began, Ratan Tata ruled the news—print, electronic or digital. Everyone had a tribute to pay—for his visionary contribution to India Inc, generous philanthropy and his unconditional love for street dogs. All that was said or written about him made one admire Ratan Tata a little more. But what stood out for me amidst this ocean of tributes to the public persona was his candid and honest admission about loneliness which plagues several but is admitted by few. A consultant who worked closely with him acknowledged that Tata was very lonely despite the huge workforce and a fairly large extended family. In a famous television interview way back in 1997, the industrialist had confessed that he missed having a wife and children because without a family, life could get very lonesome. That admission made him even more endearing, made this towering figure feel like he resonated with us, regular people who carry on with their lives.


Loneliness is an epidemic that’s sweeping across the world and even in India. Last November, the World Health Organisation declared loneliness to be “pressing global threat” with a US-based surgeon likening the chances of mortality due to loneliness to the possibility of death by smoking 15 cigarettes a day. WHO’s report even described it as hunger or thirst or “something the body needs for survival but is missing.” In India, like with many parts of the world, loneliness is growing into a public health and social concern exacerbated by changing social and familial structures, migrations of the younger generation and lifestyle changes, loneliness is fast catching on as a widespread phenomenon.


The statistics are alarming, if not staggering. Various studies throw different numbers—if some state that 25 percent of older adults the world over feel lonely, another 2023 report shows that more than 20 percent of people aged over 45 in India have faced loneliness.


One could blame the “western influence” of children flying out of the proverbial nest as a reason for parents to feel lonely. The great Indian joint family, with its own set of inter personal dynamics and complications, still offered more faces to see than what nuclear families have. Independence and freedom felt during youth can turn into loneliness later in life, if social structure crumble. As we grow older, friends get busy with their lives, parents and relatives pass away and loneliness can strike. But the feeling isn’t reserved only for the elderly. Even adolescents feel lonely! I have wondered if that’s even possible—teenage years are all about friends, late-night phone calls and hanging out with pals while juggling family and studies. But apparently no. And the reason is quite obviously, our changing lifestyle.


Gadgets and virtual interactions have replaced real world communication; hugs have made way for emojis and friendships are forged on social platforms. People live their lives virtually rather than make meaningful conversations with family members sitting next to them. With time, relationships crumble, leaving one lonely. The Great American Dream has seen people leave behind an ageing generation here in India with no one to look after them. Many are averse to homes for the aged or community living, preferring solitude.


In recent times, I have met numerous people who complain of or fear loneliness. But is it only a personal issue? A senior psychiatrist spoke about how it’s a public health concern because loneliness can lead to nervous breakdowns, depression and even Alzheimer’s. Society and communities need to step in. Support groups and community living ventures can help. Young people can spend time with lonely elders. A change in attitude will allow widowed, single or divorced elders to find companionship with worrying about society frowning upon their choices.


But let’s not wait for attitudinal changes or formal initiatives. We can all make a small difference like what three young people did when they launched Goodfellows that encourages young people to spend time with “grandpals” or the elders. Change begins at home—keep the phone aside and chat with your grandparents, share a laugh with your parents, watch a movie together with a lonely aunt or uncle and pick a hobby while you’re still young. It’ll come handy when there’s no one around. For, solo holidays and lonesome living is fun for a while. But loneliness is an ailment that we all can avoid.

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