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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.)

The bold reforms to turn around PSBs

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

PSB

Last time, I analysed the status of PSBs when NDA took over the reins in 2014. The Government immediately initiated the bold reforms to turn around PSBs. The results surprised the financial and political circles as PSBs earned a record profit of Rs. 1.41 Lakh Crores in FY24 from massive losses of Rs 85,390 Crores. This doom-to-bloom story of PSBs was achieved through consistent efforts by the government during last 10 years.

Government initiatives to revive PSBs after 2014 The government implemented a comprehensive 4R strategy: Recognising NPAs transparently, Resolution and Recovery, Recapitalising PSBs, and Reforms in the financial ecosystem.


1. The first step was Recognising NPAs transparently by unearthing the NPAs hidden under the carpet by previous regime. The painstaking Asset Quality Review (AQR) Exercise was undertaken for this. The amount of Rs. 2.27 Lakh Crores shown as total Gross NPAs of PSBs on 31 st March 2014, ie 4.7 per cent of gross advances, became Rs. 5.4 Lakh Crores as on March 2016 Rs.8.95 Lakh Crore as on 31 st March 2018 after the Asset Quality Review Exercise unearthed the hidden NPAs. This shows that huge quanta of NPAs were buried under the Carpet.


2. A massive Resolution and Recovery initiative was undertaken. To strengthen this The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was (IBC) introduced on 28 th May 2016. It gave a clear legal framework for banks to recover large NPA amounts from defaulters and allowed eligible companies to close down bad businesses. The IBC, among different channels, is the key mechanism for banks to recover stressed assets. IBC accounted for the greatest recovery mechanism, as in 2022-23, 43 per cent of the total amount recovered was through IBC alone. These clean up measures started showing results; GNPAs of PSBs dropped to Rs.4.28 Lakh Crores ie 5 per cent of Gross Advances. The Gross NPA ratio reached a historical multi-year low of 2.8 per cent, with net NPA at 0.6 per cent of Gross Advances by March 2024. The stern measures were initiated to prevent defaulters from taking new loans to pay back old ones. Wilful defaulters were stopped from starting new businesses. They were not even allowed to raise money from stock markets. This prevented the repetition of the disaster by again creating new NPAs.


3. The third step was Strengthening of PSBs by infusing capital which is called as Recapitalisation. This builds confidence in the ability of these banks to stay afloat. As part of the strategy, the government infused an unprecedented amount of Rs 3,10,997 crore to recapitalise PSBs during 2016-17 to 2020-21. For this Rs 34,997 crore were sourced through budgetary allocation and Rs 2,76,000 crore through issuance of recapitalisation bonds.

The recapitalisation programme provided much-needed support to the PSBs and prevented the possibility of any default on their part.


4. All these measures started showing results. The total outstanding credit of PSBs has surged by over 90 per cent during last 10 years and reached to Rs. 87.55 lakh crore in FY24.


5. Simultaneously the Government initiated the Banking Sector reforms and addressed issues of credit discipline, ensured responsible lending and improved governance. Besides, there was the adoption of technology, and amalgamation of banks, and the general confidence of bankers was maintained. Banks Board Bureau (BBB) was established on April 1, 2016 as an autonomous body tasked to search and select appropriate persons for the Board of Public Sector Banks for professionalising their management and recommend measures to improve Corporate Governance. BBB was replaced by Financial Services Institution Bureau (FSIB) on July 1, 2022 with chairman and mandate remaining the same. However instead of lauding these remarkable achievements of Government, political critics are attributing a motive of government to privatize these PSBs by strengthening them. In the next article this aspect will be discussed.

(To be continued…)

(The writer is a Freelance Author and Speaker on Banking. Views personal.)

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