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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.)

Warriors of the Night

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

We name our daughters Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati; we worship the divine feminine power in the temples but oppress, repress and even attack the feminine power amidst us. That is the irony in the way India sees its women.

After the safety of the daylight fades, women are seen as easy prey by the predators of the night.

We mark the nine nights of Navratri, the festival of the goddess, by celebrating the dedication and valour of nine real-life women who brave the challenges of the night to pursue their dreams.


PART - 3

Fearless Planner

The wedding concept designer advises learning to say no and being bold when interacting with people

Fearless Planner

Richa Ahuja, 28, wedding concept designer, Nashik


Wrapping up work at 3 A.M. and being back at the venue at 6 A.M. to ensure the set-up is in place before the wedding party arrives isn’t an unusual workday for Richa Ahuja, 28, an interior designer who runs a wedding concept design firm called De:Tales in Nashik. “I sometimes get only two hours of sleep during the peak events period but I enjoy every bit of my work and independence,” she says. She drives herself to work and back since Nashik doesn’t have a very robust public transport system and travelling in one’s own car is the safest option especially at night. “That way, I have never faced any trouble while commuting,” she says. During the wedding ‘season’ which is for around five months in a year, Ahuja juggles her work and home and sails through high pressure times with ease. “I enjoy my work and the freedom it gives me,” she says.

The world of event planning entails interactions with numerous clients and while she confesses that some of her colleagues have had unpleasant experiences, Ahuja proudly proclaims that she’s “never faced any nuisance”. And that, she says, is because of her demeanour and the way she communicates with people. “I have developed a very stern and no-nonsense persona. That is my defense mechanism so people don’t get too friendly. A lot of the time people judge you by your body language and the way you communicate. It’s important to draw a line,” says Ahuja.

Staying out till late is a battle that has to be fought on different fronts—apart from the sleepless nights and the safety concerns that come with the job, Ahuja has had to struggle to get her family, post-marriage, to accept her schedule. “I had to fight for my freedom to work; my in-laws weren’t comfortable with my profession although my husband understands my passion,” she says. On the other hand, her parents raised her to be independent. In keeping with her family’s expectations, Ahuja starts work by noon after cooking and finishing her household duties when she doesn’t have early morning events.

Ahuja did her schooling in Valsad before moving to Baroda to study interior design. She soon returned home but realized that the city of her birth didn’t have too many opportunities for her. Her next stop was Vapi where she joined a wedding planning firm and gained adequate experience in designing wedding sets and managing events. In 2022, she married and moved to Nashik and decided to collaborate with reputed wedding planners to market and design the concept of a high-scale wedding. Her company does business with other planners, bringing in new concepts for luxury wedding functions.

“You have to be fearless,” is the mantra Ahuja lives by, something that she learnt early on in life while growing up in a small town and moving cities to find work and realise her dream of being independent. While narrating her life’s journey, she says: “I hope my story encourages other women to embrace their power, no matter how difficult the circumstances. We are capable of incredible things, even when the world doesn’t provide us with the support we need. We can create, lead, and thrive, all while carrying the weight of our responsibilities with grace and determination,” she says.

According to her, every woman must have a self-defense mechanism, which includes being bold and learning to say a firm no. “One of the biggest reasons why women face trouble is because they say yes even when they don’t want to. Learn to say no and be bold while interacting with people,” she says. Ahuja’s life journey will resonate with several women who pursue their dreams while battling multiple challenges.

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