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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.)

Will Shreyas Iyer Crawl Back into the Good Books?

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Shreyas Iyer – the cricketing equivalent of that friend who keeps getting invited to parties but then spends the whole night awkwardly nursing a drink in the corner. Once hailed as India’s middle-order messiah, Shreyas has now become the poster boy for the BCCI selectors’ favorite pastime: the art of the inexplicable snub. As of September 2025, with the Asia Cup squad announcement still fresh like a bad breakup, one can’t help but wonder: will this talented batsman ever regain the favor of the Board of Control for Cricket in India?


Shreyas burst onto the scene in 2021 like a firecracker at Diwali – debuting in all formats, scoring fifties on debut, and even captaining the side in ODIs and Tests. It was the stuff of Bollywood dreams: the underdog rising to glory. But oh, how the selectors love a plot twist. By late 2023, after a string of back injuries and a batting slump that made his average look like a sad puppy’s face (187 runs in 12 Test innings at 17), he was unceremoniously dropped from the Test team. Drop number one: the classic “form dip” excuse. Fair enough, you might say – cricket’s a results game. But wait, there’s more!


Enter 2024, the year Shreyas decided to test the BCCI’s loyalty by prioritizing IPL and international commitments over domestic cricket. Big mistake. The BCCI, in a move straight out of a petty soap opera, stripped him of his central contract. Ignore number one (or drop number two, depending on how you slice it): no pay packet for you, Mr. Iyer! Fans were baffled – here was a guy who’d led India to victories, yet he was treated like he’d forgotten to bow to the selection committee. Ishan Kishan joined him in contract exile for similar “crimes,” but while Kishan clawed his way back, Shreyas spent months in the wilderness, probably wondering if he’d accidentally offended the cricket gods by choosing the wrong brand of bat.


Fast-forward to April 2025, and huzzah! Shreyas regains his Grade B central contract, a modest comeback that felt like being promoted from economy to business class – still not first, but better than steerage. Relief all around, right? Wrong. Just a month later, in May 2025, the selectors drop the hammer again: he’s omitted from the England tour squad after another lean patch. Drop number three: because apparently, one good domestic stint isn’t enough to erase the ghosts of past failures. At this point, Shreyas must be thinking, “Guys, I’m batting for KKR in IPL, scoring boundaries like it’s going out of style – what’s a man gotta do?” But no, the committee, led by the ever-enigmatic Ajit Agarkar, decided it was time for “fresh blood” or whatever euphemism they use for “we’re bored of you.”


And then, the pièce de résistance – or should I say, the snub de la snub – arrives in August 2025. Despite a stellar IPL 2025 where he smashed 604 runs in 17 matches at a strike rate of 175.07 (that’s code for “I’m on fire, selectors!”), Shreyas is left out of the Asia Cup squad. Drop number four, and this one’s a doozy. Fans exploded on social media, calling it “dirty politics” and “shame on BCCI.” Experts like Irfan Pathan backed him, saying there’s “no doubt” about his class, yet here he is, snubbed harder than a blind date who shows up in flip-flops. The omission was so shocking it made the list of “5 shocking exclusions,” right alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal. Shreyas himself broke his silence recently, admitting it’s “frustrating” – understatement of the century, buddy. Imagine training your life away, only to be told, “Nah, we’re good with the other middle-order options who… well, exist.”


So, tallying it up: at least four major drops or ignores in the last two years alone – from Tests in 2023, central contract in 2024, England tour in 2025, and now Asia Cup. That’s not a career; that’s a revolving door with a “No Entry” sign for Shreyas. The selectors seem to treat him like a yo-yo: up for a bit, then down faster than India’s stock market on a bad day. Is it form? Politics? Or just the BCCI’s way of keeping things spicy? One can’t help but chuckle at the irony – a player who’s captained India A multiple times (like the recent multi-day series against Australia A in September 2025, where he’s leading despite the snub) is somehow not “ready” for the big leagues. Meanwhile, rumors swirl of a possible Test comeback against West Indies. Oh, joy – another chance to be dropped!


(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai. Views personal.)

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