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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 curious cases of tainted NCP leaders

Updated: Nov 12, 2024

Mumbai: NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal has denied that he switched over the ruling alliance to escape from the case filed by Enforcement Directorate. Bhujbal is not an isolated leader who is under the ED lens. There are six top NCP leaders who are facing similar charges.


NCP

Ajit Pawar

The deputy chief minister stands accused for his involvement in a scam in Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB). It is alleged that there were irregularities in loan disbursements to cooperative sugar factories and that loans were sanctioned despite having financial irregularities. In many cases, loans were sanctioned without any collateral guarantees. Probe in all these cases have been slowed down after joining hands with the BJP.



NCP

Hasan Mushrif

He is accused of a money laundering case related to Sar Senapati Santaji Ghorpade Sugar Factory. It’s a sugar factory set up in 2011 in the Kolhapur district. The factory is said to be operated and controlled by family members and relatives of Hasan Mushrif. His sons are directors in these factories. The ED alleged that Mushrif had appealed to farmers to contribute Rs 10,000 to raise capital. The ED further claimed that the capital was collected from 40,000 farmers, but they were not given share certificates as shareholders. Instead, they were given sugar cards and other benefits, including sugar at a nominal rate.


NCP

Praful Patel

Patel is an accused in a money laundering case involving Iqbal Mirchi, an aide of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim. The ED launched a probe against Patel after his signatures were found on the documents which were also signed by the wife of Mirchi. Patel, however, denied the allegations of any business links with Mirchi or his wife. The agency alleged that Patel’s Millennium Developers Pvt Ltd constructed Ceejay House in 2006-07 and its third and fourth floors were transferred to Mirchi’s wife Hazra Iqbal in 2007 “towards beneficial interest of Mirchi in the land” on which Ceejay House was built.


NCP

Sunil Tatkare

He was booked for corruption in the alleged multi-crore irrigation scam. His name appeared in the chargesheet in 2017, mentioning that the probe is incomplete. While the ACB was initially probing the case, the ED was subsequently roped. In 2015, both the ACB and ED were pulled up by the court for their slow progress in investigating the corruption charges against Tatkare.



NCP

Nawab Malik

Arrested by the ED officials on charges of money laundering in the case registered against underworld don and fugitive Dawood Ibrahim and his aides. The ED officials reached Malik’s residence and conducted a search operation at his residence. He is out on bail.

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