The Middle Ground: Why True Leaders Reject Both Chaos and Calm

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My NoSmalltalk session with Rajneel Kumar

by Albert Schiller

Leadership is often presented as a binary choice between two flawed archetypes. On one end is the leader who "thrived on chaos", using friction, pressure, and constant crisis as management tools, often believing it sparks innovation. On the other hand is the leader of "complete calmness", who, in an effort to create a safe and stable environment, risks breeding complacency and losing the "sense of urgency to solve problems". Rajneel "Neel" Kumar, however, posits that genuine, sustainable leadership exists in neither of these extremes. He advocates for a "middle ground", a more nuanced and disciplined operational state that requires a leader to be both a stabilizing force and a precise catalyst for decisive action.

This philosophy is built on the rejection of passive, hierarchical management. "You cannot just be a manager in a startup anymore, or an organization," he insists, "you need to be actively a contributor to what is being done". This concept of the "working manager" is central to his approach. It is not simply about being busy; it is a strategic tool for building trust and alignment. By showing up and contributing directly to the work, a leader demolishes the informational and emotional distance that separates them from their team. It "empowers other people to understand the seriousness of what we are doing, and be committed to finding that instead of only relying on chaos, or only on calm". It transforms leadership from a position of abstract authority into a role of active, shared participation. The critical skill in this middle ground is the disciplined art of prioritization. A leader who treats every challenge as a five-alarm fire quickly burns out their team, rendering them unable to respond effectively when a true crisis emerges. Neel’s method involves the crucial step of "not making everything about a major problem that has broken out". Instead, it requires the discipline of "prioritizing what you call attention to solving". This is a form of emotional and strategic regulation that applies to the entire organization. The default state is one of focused, disciplined calm. Urgency is not a constant state of being; it is a tool to be deployed surgically and only when the situation genuinely warrants it. Furthermore, when that urgency is required, the leader must take full ownership: "Any of this chaos that you exist or you create, you lead it by yourself instead of leaving other people to solve it".

This entire framework is predicated on a deep-seated humility and a belief in delegation. It is only possible because Neel rejects the myth of the "superhuman" founder and is "very accepting of my capabilities and my limitations". This honest self-assessment allows him to trust his team, which he builds with "complementary or supplementary skills", to handle their responsibilities with autonomy. His "middle ground" is not a weak compromise between two styles; it is a higher form of discipline that requires emotional intelligence to modulate one's approach based on the situation, strategic wisdom to prioritize attention, and humility to lead from the trenches. It is a sustainable model for navigating the long, unpredictable journey of building something meaningful from nothing.

5 Lessons I Learned from this Encounter:

Open Questions for Discussion

1. Neel advocates for a "middle ground" of leadership. How can a leader, especially in a high-pressure startup environment, practically distinguish between a necessary sense of urgency and the manufactured "absolute chaos" that leads to team burnout?

2. The "working manager" model requires a leader to contribute directly. How does a founder balance this hands-on contribution with the equally critical, high-level strategic tasks that only they can perform, without becoming a bottleneck?