The Loyalist in Middle Management — How One Hire Spoils an Entire Site
You cannot reform a कर्मठ-captured middle layer. You can only build around it.
Two decades in construction. Four countries. Colleagues from every imaginable background. And in all of it, one observation has stayed consistent — the moment business and personal relationships get mixed at the senior level, the entire organisation starts to rot from the middle.It usually doesn't show up at the top. The MD might know. He might pretend not to know. Sometimes he's the one who created it — quietly placing a relative, a family friend, or a long-time loyalist in a position they never earned.The damage starts when this person becomes a manager or senior manager. I call this person the कर्मठ (Karmath) — a close relative / friend of director who serves no purpose except to be useful to his godfather.
What the कर्मठ Actually Does
He shows up at site like a choudhary. Walks past the Resident Construction Manager (RCM) without acknowledgement. Issues instructions to site staff directly. Breaks protocols. Bypasses chains of command. Even having discussion with customer at site in absence of RCM, making commitment without taking site input from RCM.
He doesn't loop the RCM into discussions. He doesn't share information. He doesn't even pretend to respect the structure. Because in his head, he reports only to one person — the godfather in the head office.His real job? To be Naradmuni.
To carry every insignificant detail back to the godfather — who said what in the morning meeting, who took an extra tea break, who questioned a decision. That's the job. That's the entire output.
How It Spoils the Site
When the middle layer is captured by a कर्मठ, the consequences are immediate.
The site admin stops listening to the RCM. Supervisors and foremen miss targets without consequence. Good performers learn to stay quiet. Average performers learn to align with the कर्मठ— because they know where the real power sits.
Decorum collapses. Protocol collapses. Ridiculous ideas get implemented because no one wants to upset the कर्मठ. Genuine engineers start leaving — quietly, one by one.And in the Office?
Same pattern. Different setting.
He passes unnecessary remarks about colleagues. Picks at people for sport. Maintains an air of inevitability — because everyone knows his godfather is two doors away.
And here's the worst part — at year-end, he gets the 10% hike. The appreciation letter. The visibility.
While the people who actually built the project quietly update their CVs.
The Only Real Fix
Over years of watching this play out, I've come to one conclusion — you cannot reform a कर्मठ-captured middle layer. You can only build around it.
The fix is to recruit a separate, clear-eyed team at middle and senior level — built on merit, with clear goals and clear authority. Not as a parallel, but as a structural reset.
Painful in the short term. The only thing that works in the long term.
If you've spent enough time in any organisation, you've met a Karmadth. The question is whether the leadership has the courage to dismantle the structure that protects him.
