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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.)

Twisting History

In an audacious display of historical revisionism, Pakistan has not only sought to deny Bhagat Singh his rightful place in history but has also taken the extraordinary step of branding him a ‘terrorist.’ This comes despite Singh’s widely acknowledged status as one of India’s greatest freedom fighters and a revolutionary martyr. Bhagat Singh was hanged by the British colonial government in Lahore Central Jail 1931 at the age of 23, but now, the authorities in Pakistan have chosen to brand him a criminal, a designation that is as inaccurate as it is offensive.


This attempt to undermine Singh’s legacy comes with the scrapping of a proposed plan to rename Shadman Chowk in Lahore after him and install his statue there. The proposal was halted in response to the views of a retired Commodore Tariq Majeed, a member of the committee set up by the Lahore district government to oversee the renaming. Majeed’s objections were both insulting and historically inaccurate, claiming that Bhagat Singh was not a revolutionary but a “criminal,” and that in today’s terms, he would be considered a “terrorist.” Singh, according to Majeed, had killed a British police officer and was therefore deserving of execution - an interpretation that gravely distorts the very nature of Singh’s sacrifice.


Majeed’s report went further, alleging that Singh was influenced by “religious leaders hostile to Muslims” and accusing the Bhagat Singh Foundation of promoting an ideology contrary to Islamic values. He also claimed that it was not acceptable in Pakistan to honour a figure who was an atheist, and that human statues, in line with Islamic prohibitions, should not be allowed. The fact that these views were taken seriously by the Lahore government shows not only a deep-seated bias but an active effort to erase Bhagat Singh’s place in history.


This revisionist narrative is an affront to the principles of justice and history. Bhagat Singh’s actions were rooted in a deep sense of nationalistic fervour and a commitment to ending colonial oppression, not religious or ideological extremism. His bomb attack on the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi was intended as a protest against British imperialism, not an act of indiscriminate violence. It was an expression of defiance against the tyranny of colonial rule, not the terror of an insurgent group.


What makes this revisionism even more glaring is the hypocrisy of Pakistan itself, a nation with a long and documented history of sponsoring terrorism. From providing safe havens to groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, to orchestrating violence in Kashmir and Afghanistan, Pakistan has long used terrorism as a tool of statecraft. To then turn around and condemn Bhagat Singh - who fought to free his people from colonial oppression - is not only absurd but deeply insulting.


External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and the Indian government must respond firmly. Singh’s stature as a revolutionary icon is unquestionable, and India must not allow this travesty to go unchallenged.

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