Summary
Present Moment Leadership (PML) draws on established scholarship to help leaders combine empathy, competence, and agility as circumstances change. It connects flexing these elements in the moment with growing the range and precision of responses available over time, giving leaders a shared language for examining their choices and learning from their effects.
When the leadership challenge changes
Consider a manager meeting with a team after a project falls behind. The manager plans to reset deadlines, but team members explain that earlier concerns were dismissed. Some have stopped raising problems. Before revising the plan, the manager needs to understand what has discouraged them from speaking and what would help relevant information surface sooner.
The conversation also needs to lead to decisions. The manager must judge when further inquiry would improve the plan and when the team has enough information to act. Leadership involves recognizing that shift and responding to it.
Getting to the source of the problem
Leadership research has long recognized the importance of adapting behavior to circumstances. The PML white paper from the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School builds on that tradition while questioning how well familiar leadership styles capture demands that can change within a single interaction. PML directs attention to the particular situation and the choices available as it unfolds
Developed by CIL co-founders Mike Doyle and Christopher Myers, PML draws on established research concerning task-focused, relational, and change-focused leadership behaviors. The white paper synthesizes this scholarship into a framework for practice and further study, organized around a guiding question: “What does this moment ask of me as a leader?”
How the three elements work together
PML organizes leadership around three interrelated elements. Empathy involves understanding and responding to others’ perspectives and needs. Competence includes applying expertise and judgment through direction, inquiry, or facilitation. Agility involves gaining perspective and judging whether to adapt an approach or sustain a chosen course.
All three elements work together in every leadership moment, but their emphasis and form should reflect what the situation requires. PML calls this flexing. Competence, for example, may be expressed through clear direction in one moment and through questions that draw out others’ expertise in another. Growing builds the capacity to make these adjustments, expanding the responses leaders can draw on and improving their skill in choosing and using them. Through practice and feedback, leaders develop less familiar responses and examine when habitual approaches help or hinder the work. Flexing draws on current capabilities; learning from its effects helps identify where further growth is needed.
For the manager discussing the delayed project, empathy means taking team members’ concerns about speaking up seriously. Competence is expressed through questions that establish what happened and draw on knowledge across the team. Agility means reconsidering the assumption that resetting deadlines will resolve the problem.
Once the causes are clearer, competence takes a more directive form as the manager confirms priorities and responsibilities. Empathy remains important in understanding the support people need. Agility includes committing to the revised plan while remaining alert to evidence that it needs adjustment.
Recognizing what the moment requires
Reading a situation requires looking beyond first impressions. Silence in a meeting, for example, may reflect agreement, uncertainty, or concern about the consequences of speaking. A leader can investigate whose perspective is missing and what would help that knowledge inform the work.
The task provides further cues. An unfamiliar problem may warrant exploration, while an immediate risk may require clear direction before an extended discussion. Leaders need to weigh the consequences of delay alongside the consequences of acting on incomplete information. The project example illustrates one possible sequence; other situations will call for a different response.
Growing through practice and feedback
Leaders can make development more concrete by choosing a response they find difficult. Someone who avoids difficult feedback might practice acknowledging an employee’s perspective while stating a performance expectation clearly.
Feedback helps leaders examine what their choices enabled or discouraged. After a meeting, they can ask colleagues whether relevant concerns were heard and whether the discussion left them clear about what to do next. Comparing others’ experiences with their own intentions can reveal where an approach needs refinement. Coaches and peers can help leaders interpret that feedback and identify a specific behavior to practice.
Making the next moment a learning opportunity
At the next project meeting, the manager can look for evidence that concerns are being raised earlier and that agreed actions are moving forward. If people remain reluctant to contribute or responsibilities are still unclear, those observations can guide the next leadership choice.
PML gives leaders a way to make such choices more deliberate and learn from what follows. Each interaction offers an opportunity to respond to the work at hand while developing the capacity to meet future demands.
Access the full white paper here: Center for Innovative Leadership. (2026, September 17). Present Moment Leadership: A framework for leading and developing leaders in the modern world of work [White paper]. Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. https://cil.carey.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/09/Present-Moment-Leadership-CIL-DIGITAL.pdf
