In professional discourse, an important distinction is often made between “leadership” and “management.” In practice, however, the business world tends to collapse the two. Defining and understanding these distinct skill sets is critical — especially considering that leadership is actually an “opposite yet complementary function to management,” according to Unstoppable co-founder Vikram Maraj.
For anyone to effectively guide an organization toward a successful future, honing strong leadership and management skills is essential — understanding how and when to use each is like conducting a symphony. And when we find the harmony by hitting the right notes at the right time? “It can be magic,” says Unstoppable co-founder Kevin Gangel.
In this interview — the third in our three-part Leadership vs Management series — Vikram and Kevin discuss how to distinguish them as themselves, and what specific skills and qualities are necessary for effective leadership.
In what areas do you most often see leaders struggling — early and late in their careers?
Vikram Maraj (VM): Being someone who can lead upward is the most notable area where leaders struggle, at all points in their careers. There is no truer mark of a person’s leadership than the ability to shape and impact the thinking and the decision-making of those they report up to. Leading downward is where 99% of most leadership books and conversations are focused. Leading downward leverages the positional authority that has been granted to the leader by the organization. In other words, the leader’s direct reports know they “have to do” what the boss says — or else.
Leading upward has zero clout behind it. The absence of this positional luxury necessitates a different personal competence. This competence is largely a leadership competence — the ability to make your vision or a possibility come to life without having positional influence or a pre-existing consensus to back you.
There is no truer test of a person’s leadership than the ability to shape and impact the thinking and the decision-making of those that they report up to.
— Vikram Maraj, Unstoppable Co-founder
Kevin Gangel (KG): Early in their careers, a lot of leaders (including me) struggle with needing to know the answer, the right way to do things, what they are supposed to do. They struggle with not knowing who to ask for all that. And while some of those answers occasionally come along, at some point, you discover nobody has those answers. In fact, most of the answers don’t exist yet, because this situation and these people in this moment in time have never existed before.
Once you get that there is no one way, no one answer, no one guru — once you get that leadership is something to be worked out in the moment — then you are on the path to true leadership.
You also get, at some point, that you are the best person for the job. Why? Because you are so brilliant and skilled? No. You are the best person for the job because you are the one who is there, and that makes you the best person for it. You are the right person, this is the right place, and this is the right time. Because you say so and because now is the only time we have…who else is gonna figure it out and lead in this moment?
You are the best person for the job because you are the one who is there, and that makes you the best person for it. You are the right person, this is the right place, and this is the right time.
— Kevin Gangel, Unstoppable Co-founder
Later in their careers, leaders can swing too hard away from seeking any answers from anyone else. If you stop soliciting other opinions, stop putting yourself in growth situations, stop playing bigger and bigger so that you are uncomfortable and even a little scared, then you start to atrophy as a leader. You do want to be extremely confident in yourself, your commitments, and your purpose, but you want to remain highly skeptical about what you think you know and what you think you have figured out. When you lose your beginner’s mind, you’re in trouble.
What are some notable examples of leadership?
VM: From our perspective, there are no “leaders.” Leader is not a “thing,” like a table, leader is a way of being that is available to anyone at any time. Therefore, our foremost definition of leadership is not a title but rather someone making the unpredictable and even unprecedented happen.
What Yvon Chouinard has done as the former CEO and founder of Patagonia is a mindblowing example. He declared in 2022 that Earth is Patagonia’s only stakeholder and has restructured Patagonia so that its profits are now used to fight the climate crisis. It’s ridiculous that an almost $3B company alters its purpose to be the survival of the planet, not the survival of its shareholders. The heat he has put on conventional fast fashion is incredible. Patagonia is driving the industry into sustainability, whether it wants to or not.
Another hero is Ray Anderson of InterfaceFlor Carpets, who died in August 2011. In 1994, Ray transformed after reading Paul Hawken’s “The Ecology of Commerce,” which talks about “the death of birth.” He vowed to stop plundering the Earth and made a radical promise on behalf of InterfaceFlor: “We promise to eliminate any negative impact Interface has on the environment by 2020.”
At the U.S. Embassy in London in 1998, Ray Anderson gave a keynote to a room of industry moguls, including six CEOs of the largest companies in the world. What was to be a mutual back-patting session turned into a powerful indictment levied by Ray. As CNN wrote shortly after, “The CEOs shifted in their seats as Anderson explained that he now considered the technologies of the Industrial Revolution to be ‘voracious,’ a form of collective suicide.”
“In the future,” Ray declared, “people like me will go to jail.”
Ray went on to say, “Interface of Atlanta, my company, is changing course to become sustainable — to grow without damaging the earth and manufacture without pollution, waste, or fossil fuels. If we get it right, our company and our supply chain will never have to take another drop of oil.” He then leveled his finger at Chris Fay, then CEO of the British unit of Royal Dutch/Shell, and he added, “We want to put you out of business.” That is leadership. Wow!
Leadership is most notable when it is done outside of position, authority, and decision rights.
— Kevin Gangel, Unstoppable Co-founder
How does organic, day-to-day leadership scale up into impactful changemaking?
KG: Leadership for me is most notable when it is done outside of position, authority, and decision rights. The small, in-the-moment, no-one-is-directly-asking-for-leadership examples are often the most powerful.
When I was 14, I was the best soccer player on a bad team (me being our best player a clear indication of just how bad we were). There was this huge guy on the other team talking about how small and weak our team was and the rest of his team was laughing about it before the game. My team was intimidated and embarrassed before the whistle even blew. I said to myself, “I don’t care if we win or not, but that guy’s ass is gonna be on the ground today.” So this guy who had to be six inches taller than me and outweighed me by 50 pounds went ass over teakettle for the first time about 10 minutes in. I slide-tackled him (fully legal) three times in total. As he chased me around the field the rest of the day, my team was getting more and more excited, happier, confident, and playing one of their best games. I wasn’t trying to “lead”; I was just mad and wanted some justice. But my team experienced themselves as something much bigger than what they knew themselves to be that day.
Years later, in the corporate world, I was faced with a dysfunctional culture on my own team, under my watch, with cliques and silos, bullying and disrespect happening. And there came a point when I stopped being a victim about how hard I had it, and how it was the fault of the “bad apples,” and I risked everything in declaring a culture shift. I declared myself as the primary cause of the dysfunction — not because it was true, but because it was the only way to lead through the situation. Fast forward a year, there were no more “bad apples.” People who had been dominated in the culture and under-performing were now top performers, and the culture and the team became more important than anyone’s individual performance or any individual accolades.
When I look back at my youth, or my career, the best examples of leadership come from putting myself at risk (physically, emotionally, or reputationally) and doing so for the greater good of a value beyond my personal interests.
Which leadership qualities are most admirable to you?
VM: Every time I think of Ray Anderson’s humility and grit I become moved. Whatever it took to break free of ties that bound him to “shareholder value at all cost” is inspiring. And then to go on a rampage to reform other CEOs is the embodiment of courage.
KG: These days, my admiration is for all the people out there who are part of historically marginalized groups and standing up for themselves and others, asserting their right to take up space, to be heard, to be seen, and to be reckoned with. Any person of color, anyone in the LGBTQ+ community, anyone dealing with a disability or chronic illness; dealing with all that and still putting themselves out there to do what’s right, lead upward, fight, speak up, and disrupt a status quo that was built to keep them silent. That to me is impressive.
Anyone could have the courage to make a dent in the status quo of their company, their industry, or their world. These people are heroes not because of their positional power but because of the powerful purposes they invented and surrendered themselves and their companies to.
— Vikram Maraj, Unstoppable Co-founder
VM: What these leaders illustrate most is that anyone could have the courage to make a dent in the status quo of their company, their industry, or their world. These people are heroes not because of their positional power but because of the powerful purposes they invented and surrendered themselves and their companies to. And more extraordinary, they went on to demand this of their fellow leaders. They did the hard thing, they rocked the boat. Their vision went beyond their company and was world-changing.
Vik Maraj is a co-founder of Unstoppable and serves as Head of Design and Delivery.
Kevin Gangel is a co-founder of Unstoppable and serves as CEO.