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The Work of Staying in Motion

Arthur de Oude & Mariya Stefanova

Cover of The Work of Staying in Motion

What enables some leaders to stay in motion while others stall?

For every leader who wants to get better.

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PDF, 72 pages

In short

The Work of Staying in Motion (September 2026) is a personal reflection by Arthur de Oude and Mariya Stefanova. It asks a practical question: what enables some leaders to stay in motion while others, with comparable resources and talent, stall?

From decades of working alongside leaders trying to get something moving in an organisation, the authors came to nine qualities, in three groups. A leader, in this book, is anyone trying to get something moving and keep it moving, whatever their title. Each quality is paired with one tool the authors know well.

Reading the environment

  • Appreciate: reading individual behaviour (DISC)
  • Calibrate: reading team dynamics (Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team)
  • Excavate: reading the organisational culture (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's cultural model)

Positioning as the leader

  • Model: leading through visible example (Frei's Trust Triangle)
  • Align: creating shared direction (the Apendoctrine, after de Waal and van Vugt)
  • Propel: moving people toward action (framing and storytelling, after Tversky, Kahneman and Heath)

Working with what drives people

  • Fuel: sustaining energy (Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory)
  • Activate: designing for how people decide (System 1 and System 2, after Stanovich, West and Kahneman)
  • Nurture: making the new way a habit (Duhigg's Habit Loop)

Each chapter says where the quality helped a leader, what it cost where it was missing, and the tool chosen for it, and in most chapters where that tool stops helping. The chapters can be read in any order. A closing synthesis shows how the nine work together, with nine patterns that signal where a leader's own gap lies, so a leader can start where it creates the most friction.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Part IReading the environment
  3. 01Appreciatereading individual behaviour
  4. 02Calibratereading team dynamics
  5. 03Excavatereading the organisational culture
  6. Part IIPositioning as the leader
  7. 04Modelleading through visible example
  8. 05Aligncreating shared direction
  9. 06Propelmoving people toward action
  10. Part IIIWorking with what drives people
  11. 07Fuelsustaining energy
  12. 08Activatedesigning for how people decide
  13. 09Nurturemaking the new way a habit
  14. Synthesis
  15. Tools

Introduction

This book is a personal reflection. Between the two of us, we have spent decades working alongside leaders who were trying to get something moving in an organisation, some of them more successful at it than others. This is where we share what we learned from working with them.

The question behind this book is practical: what enables some leaders to stay in motion while others stall, with comparable resources and talent?

We reflected on which qualities we saw make the difference, and we came to nine. We almost never met a leader who had all of them. Most were good at a number of them and not at the rest. What we have done is distil the nine, and for each of them select, from our own experience, one tool that serves it.

We use the word leader in its broadest sense, well beyond the narrower meaning of someone who holds a formal leadership role. Whoever is trying to get something moving in an organisation, and keep it moving, is a leader in these pages, whatever their title.

How this book is organised

The nine fall into three groups: reading the environment, positioning as the leader, and working with what drives people. The grouping is a way of finding your way around them, not an order to work through.

Part I: Reading the environment

Leaders need to perceive what is happening before they can respond to it. Reading the environment means keeping three readings in balance: the individual, the team, and the culture they both sit inside. Each has a tool that serves it:

  • Appreciate: reading individual behaviour (Tool: DISC)
  • Calibrate: reading team dynamics (Tool: Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions)
  • Excavate: reading the organisational culture (Tool: Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's cultural model)

Part II: Positioning as the leader

Reading a situation accurately is where it starts. Leaders have to turn perception into credible action, and the action has to be visible:

  • Model: leading through visible example (Tool: Frei's Trust Triangle)
  • Align: creating shared direction (Tool: the Apendoctrine, a practitioner synthesis of primate leadership research after de Waal and van Vugt)
  • Propel: moving people toward action (Tool: framing and storytelling, after Tversky, Kahneman and Heath)

Part III: Working with what drives people

The first two quality groups create clarity and credibility, and both depend on the leader continuing to supply them. These three do not. They work toward something that sustains itself, where the leader's intervention is needed less each time:

  • Fuel: sustaining energy (Tool: Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory)
  • Activate: designing for how people decide (Tool: the System 1 and System 2 framework, after Stanovich, West and Kahneman)
  • Nurture: making the new way a habit (Tool: Duhigg's Habit Loop)

The tools are not the point; the qualities they develop are. But a quality without a way of developing it stays abstract, so each chapter pairs the two.

Each of the nine chapters that follow describes one quality as we have experienced it: where we saw it help a leader be effective, what it cost where it was missing, and the tool we chose for it, one we know well and have found effective, and good to work with. They can be read in any order.