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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.)

Three seniors pose significant challenge before BJP

BJP

Mumbai: While the BJP has so far announced candidates for over 140 seats in the state and is facing rebellion within the party at several places, at least three senior leaders have posed a significant challenge before the party in areas dominated by hard-core BJP supporters.


Senior BJP leader Gopal Shetty, who had been a corporator for two terms, an MLA for two terms and an MP for two terms has rebelled against the party and filed his nomination as an independent candidate on Tuesday. He was hoping for a ticket to the Maharashtra Assembly polls from the BJP after being denied one in the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year.


The former president of the Party’s Mumbai unit said he was upset over an ‘outsider’ getting the ticket. “Borivali is not a Dharamshala. Party workers had suggested my name... One of the local Borivali workers should have got a ticket here...” he said.


The BJP has fielded Sanjay Upadhyay, the Secretary for BJP Maharashtra. Upadhyay hails from Vile Parle in Mumbai and had been preparing for assembly after party gave him Rajya Sabha tickets a couple of times only to be withdrawn later.


 “I have been a loyal party worker for a very long time. I helped four BJP candidates to file their nominations. However, when the list was announced, I was dejected to see that I have not been fielded. The issue is not that I have not been given a ticket, the issue is that the candidate must have been a local BJP worker from Borivali,” Shetty reiterated.


Shetty’s rebellion presents a significant challenge for the party, given his strong influence in Borivali, where he has served multiple terms as corporator, MLA and MP. “There is no question of backtracking on the decision. I am not going to join any other party and have not given up the dialogue with the party leadership,” Shetty said.


In Mumbadevi, the party’s decision to field Shaina NC as the Shinde-led Shiv Sena candidate against Congress’s Amin Patel has sparked further dissent. Former MLA Atul Shah announced his intention to contest, protesting what he called “the imposition of an outsider” in the constituency.

“I have worked hard for the area as a corporator and MLA in the past, despite which party has chosen the person who has nothing to do with Mumbadevi. Party did not take me into confidence before announcing the candidacy,” Shah said.


Party insiders note that such open rebellion is unprecedented, with no comparable incidents in the past decade.


The third area where a senior leader is unhappy with the leadership is Ghatkopar. Six-terms MLA and former minister Prakash Mehta, who was denied party ticket in 2019 was willing to contest the election this time. However, the party decided to repeat the sitting MLA Parag Shah leaving Mehta red-faced. It needs to see how the disgruntlement of these senior leaders affect the party in the areas that had traditionally been its strongholds.

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