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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 Forgotten Investors

Future Group’s fixed deposits scheme has betrayed India’s elderly savers.

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In one of the most overlooked financial betrayals of recent years, thousands of retail investors - many of them senior citizens - have been left devastated and voiceless after investing their life savings in fixed deposits offered by Future Enterprises Ltd., part of the once-reputed Future Group, the company behind Big Bazaar and other major Indian retail chains.

 

Between 2019 and early 2021, Future Group aggressively marketed fixed deposit schemes, offering up to 10.2 percent interest to senior citizens - an attractive option during a time of falling bank interest rates. Backed by the brand name of one of India’s largest retail conglomerates, these deposits seemed like a safe and lucrative choice for many. What followed was nothing short of a financial disaster.

 

Just months after collecting substantial funds from the public, Future Group began collapsing under the weight of its own mismanagement and debt burden. By 2022, it entered the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Since then, thousands of depositors, especially senior citizens, have been left in limbo, battling a legal maze, only to now be informed that they will receive a mere 2 percent of their principal amount as part of the “resolution plan.”

 

To put it in perspective: On a Rs. 5 lakh FD, a depositor will receive just Rs. 10,000. After more than three years of waiting, all they have received is uncertainty and shattered hope.

 

What is most concerning is not just the loss but the complete lack of accountability.

Why was Future Group allowed to raise public deposits when it was already under financial stress? Why didn’t regulators like SEBI, RBI, or the Ministry of Corporate Affairs intervene or flag the risk? Why was there no requirement for an FD reserve fund or third-party guarantee to protect retail investors? Where is the audit trail that shows how the FD money was used, and by whom?

 

There have been no answers, just a deafening silence from regulatory bodies and indifference from the very system that was supposed to protect investors. This reeks of regulatory negligence, poor corporate governance and perhaps even wilful fraud.

 

It is no coincidence that senior citizens were aggressively targeted with higher interest rates. Many of them invested large chunks of their retirement funds, pensions, or savings meant for medical emergencies or end-of-life security.

 

Some were retired school teachers, widows, and pensioners who lived on limited incomes and saw this as a rare opportunity to earn better interest. They trusted a well-known brand and never imagined they would be caught in a trap set by corporate greed and loopholes in law.

Today, many of them do not even have the means or stamina to fight legal battles. And tragically, some have passed away waiting for justice.

 

Despite the sheer scale of this financial wipeout, the mainstream media has largely remained silent. Why hasn’t this story been covered widely? Why hasn’t the government been questioned? Why is there no national outrage when thousands of lives are affected?

 

If this had been a bank collapse or a stock market fraud, it would have made headlines. But just because it happened quietly, through ‘corporate deposits,’ it is being conveniently buried under legal jargon and bankruptcy clauses.

 

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was meant to bring corporate discipline but in many cases, it has become a legal shield for companies to default with impunity. Under the resolution plan, secured creditors like banks and institutional lenders are prioritized while retail depositors are treated as expendable, receiving crumbs and often after years of delays and no interest. The 2 percent payout being offered to FD holders is not only insulting but morally and ethically indefensible.

 

This is a wake-up call for India’s financial and legal ecosystem. Retail FD investors must be treated as priority stakeholders in insolvency cases, especially when they are individuals and senior citizens. The RBI and MCA must introduce stricter controls and public disclosures for companies offering public fixed deposits. A dedicated redressal and compensation mechanism must be created for depositors caught in insolvency cases.

 

The media and civil society must raise their voice on behalf of those who cannot as this is no mere business failure but a moral one. As citizens, journalists, and fellow human beings, we must ensure this does not go unheard. These investors deserve more than 2 percent. They deserve their money, their dignity and above all justice.

 

(The writer is a senior business systems analyst specializing in strategic business solutions. Views personal.)

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