phrases - Alternative to "Overreaching her mandate" for non-elected people

The way I see it, 'overreaching his mandate' is used when someone elected to a position or answering to someone else does things that are 'out of line' (negative connotation) for him. There is an element of malice involved.

My questions are:

1) Is there a phrase that conveys a similar meaning BUT for non-elected/not-answerable-to-someone people without the sense of malice but the actions being wrong nevertheless, maybe out of stupidity? E.g. A father may try to care for his child by standing by his bed all night so that if the child is afraid, he'll find his father awake protecting him. However, the child privately finds this scary and is upset by it.

2) What other similar phrases are there for such actions, for people who may or may not be answerable to someone else and with varying intentions? e.g. (one phrase for one of such situations): My father went out of the way to make sure that my commute to school was comfortable by delaying his office even though there was a school bus available. There is no malice and the child gains from the action but the father is majorly inconvenienced. I think the same phrase can be used for elected people. What other phrases for different situations are there?

EDIT: Also: Going overboard has negative connotation along the same lines.

Answer

Sounds like the Dad went “above and beyond [the call of duty].”

above and beyond (something)
more than is required; greater than the required amount.
(Typically: be ~; go ~.) The English teacher helped students after school every day, even though it was beyond the call of duty.
(from McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, via ‘The Free Dictionary by Farlex’)

Used with “his/her mandate,” “above and beyond” could capture “overreaching his mandate” for an elected/appointed official, not only without the negative, “out of line,” connotation that you observe (correctly, in my opinion), but with the same positive connotation usually found in its use with “the call of duty.”
(example of positive use with “mandate” found in ‘Saving the Jews: Men and Women who Defied the Final Solution’ by Mordecai Paldie on ‘Google Books’)

Used with “his/her authority,” however, the negative connotation is retained, so “above and beyond” is not always positive, such as it is used in the penultimate paragraph of the linked article from ‘Kens5/Eyewitness News’.

Somewhere in between the normally positive connotation when used with “the call of duty” and the normally negative one when used with “his/her authority,” there are also examples of the phrase being used to gently imply the notion of “being wrong nevertheless, maybe out of stupidity” presented in your question and examples, such as it is used with “the bounds of reason” in ‘Godey's Magazine’ (from ‘Google Books’) and with “the call of reason” in ‘New York Game & Fish’ (also from ‘Google Books’).