Narrator: An executive named Matt, a frontrunner for the CEO position at a Fortune 50 company, walks into the most important interview of his life. The announcement is just a week away. This meeting with the board's nominating committee should be a final, triumphant step. But as the questions begin, the atmosphere in the room shifts. He senses doubt, frustration. He tries to compensate by diving deeper into operational details, but the more he talks, the more disconnected he seems. He comes off as robotic, tactical, and lost in the weeds. The committee needed a strategic leader, and they saw a micromanager. The job, which was his to lose, slips through his fingers.

This kind of high-stakes failure is precisely the problem at the heart of Real-Time Leadership: Find Your Winning Moves When the Stakes Are High by David Noble and Carol Kauffman. The book argues that in critical moments, our default reactions are often our worst enemies. It presents a powerful framework designed to help leaders create a crucial space between a challenge and their response, allowing them to make conscious, strategic choices instead of falling back on instinct.

Narrator: At its core, Real-Time Leadership is built on a profound idea articulated by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response." Noble and Kauffman argue that the single most important skill for a leader is the ability to find and use that space, especially under pressure. To do this, they developed the MOVE framework, a four-part system for navigating complex challenges.

The framework consists of being Mindfully Alert, generating Options, Validating your vantage point, and Engaging to effect change. This isn't a rigid, sequential checklist but a dynamic mental model. Consider the case of Marcus, the new CEO of a Fortune 100 energy company. He was frustrated because his leadership team was resisting his vision for a global operating model. His stimulus was their resistance, and his initial response was anger and a desire to push his agenda harder. By applying the MOVE framework, he was coached to create space. Instead of reacting with frustration, he became mindfully alert to the real problem: he hadn't clearly communicated his strategy or established the structures needed for his team to succeed. This pause allowed him to shift from a knee-jerk reaction to a more strategic and effective response.

Narrator: The first step, being Mindfully Alert (M), requires a leader to assess what is truly needed in any given moment. The authors break this down into three critical dimensions of leadership. The External dimension is about the situation itself: What does a win look like? What are the goals and priorities? The Internal dimension is about the leader’s own state: Am I being the person I want to be? Am I calm, clear, and courageous? Finally, the Interpersonal dimension is about others: Am I leading in a way that my team needs me to?

The story of Matt, the failed CEO candidate, is a perfect illustration of this. His external goal was clear: get the CEO job. But he failed spectacularly on the other two dimensions. Internally, he was so focused on proving his knowledge that he came across as a "robot," failing to project the calm, strategic confidence the board needed. Interpersonally, he failed to connect with the committee members, talking at them instead of engaging with them. By understanding these three dimensions, leaders can perform a quick diagnostic to see where they are falling short and adjust their approach in real time.

Narrator: Once a leader is mindfully alert, the next step is to Generate Options (O). Too often, leaders rely on a single, default approach. The book introduces the Four Stances as a tool to break this habit and create multiple pathways forward. These stances are: Lean In (being assertive, driving action), Lean Back (analyzing, observing, gathering data), Lean With (collaborating, building consensus), and Don't Lean (pausing, reflecting, accessing intuition).

Akash, the COO of an apparel company, was a master of leaning back. His entire career was built on heavy governance, deep due diligence, and data-driven analysis. This single stance had served him well, but when his division started missing targets, his team complained that his approach was too burdensome. He was stuck in a rut. Through coaching, Akash learned to generate options using the Four Stances. He realized that for low-risk initiatives, a "light governance" model (leaning in and with) was more appropriate. For high-risk challenges, he could blend his default data-driven approach with more intuitive, bigger steps. By developing these alternative pathways, he became a more flexible and effective leader, able to tailor his approach to the situation instead of using the same hammer for every nail.

Narrator: Generating options is useless if a leader's perception of reality is flawed. The third step, Validate Your Vantage Point (V), is about stripping away biases, wishful thinking, and fear to see the situation clearly. Leaders must constantly ask: Is my perspective accurate? Am I seeing what I want to see, or what is actually there?

This was the critical lesson for Amanda, a CEO pressured by her board to pursue a major acquisition to fuel rapid growth. She felt "railroaded" into the decision and pushed her CFO to create financial models that would justify the move. When the initial, realistic projections showed the deal wouldn't be profitable for years, she pressured him to revise the assumptions until the model looked good. She was seeing what she wanted to see. It was only when her coach challenged her—"Damn, I’m doing it again—seeing things as I want them to be rather than as they are"—that she stepped back. She told her CFO, "Wishful thinking is not a strategy," and killed the deal. By validating her vantage point, she avoided a potentially disastrous acquisition and shifted her focus to more sustainable organic growth.

Narrator: The final step of the framework is to Engage and Effect Change (E). This is where strategy turns into action. A core tool for this is the "Leader's Intent," a clear and concise articulation of the vision, priorities, and way forward. This isn't about giving detailed instructions; it's about setting the destination and boundaries, then empowering the team to figure out the route.

General Chuck Jacoby, while leading the U.S. Northern Command, exemplified this principle. His role involved decisions with immense consequences, like shooting down an incoming missile. He couldn't micromanage his vast organization. Instead, he focused on articulating his Leader's Intent with absolute clarity. He then delegated authority, trusting his team to make decisions as long as they were legal, moral, and within his stated intent. This freed him to focus on the few critical decisions that only he could make. This approach of combining a clear Leader's Intent with optimal delegation allows leaders to cut through complexity and empower their teams to execute effectively, ensuring that the vision is not just communicated, but achieved.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Real-Time Leadership is that effective leadership is not a static identity but a dynamic, moment-to-moment practice. Success in high-stakes situations doesn't come from having all the answers, but from having a reliable process to find them. The MOVE framework provides this process, transforming leadership from a series of reactive gambles into a set of deliberate, strategic moves.

Ultimately, the book challenges us to move beyond simply being successful and to aspire to be extraordinary. This means focusing not just on external goals, but on our internal state and interpersonal impact. It asks a powerful question: When the pressure is on and the stakes are high, will you be defined by your reflexive habits, or will you create the space to choose your response and lead with intention? The choice, as the authors make clear, is yours to make.