Leading when the role changes — and the rules do, too

Hello! Welcome back to Your Future, Your Work — where we explore what it really takes to lead with clarity, courage, and conviction. Because what you do next matters.

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You said yes to a clear opportunity: a role that matched your strengths, came with defined expectations, and offered the appropriate support to succeed.

But now, a few months — or, if you’re lucky, years — later, everything looks different.

The scope expanded.

The structure changed.

The resources shrank.

And suddenly, you’re leading in an environment you didn’t agree to, and trying to deliver results under conditions you never would’ve accepted upfront.

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.

I see this every week in my coaching work: talented leaders navigating a mismatch between the job they took and the job they’re actually in.

The question becomes “How do I lead well right now, when the old playbook no longer fits?”

When the support disappears and expectations rise

When I started working with Faye, she had just taken on a high-profile initiative with major visibility across the organization.

While she was applying, it felt like an opportunity to accelerate her career: strategic, cross-functional, and influential.

But once she stepped in, the reality looked very different.

The promised partnership with marketing never materialized. Her team, which she relied on for crucial support, was restructured. The recognition for her Herculean efforts? Missing in action.

Meanwhile, the expectations from the board kept growing.

Faye found herself in meetings defending work she’d had to execute almost entirely on her own, and was treated like she was a risk when the support she’d asked for was finally given. She was frustrated, tired, and questioning whether staying made sense at all.

Our work together began with one core focus: protect her energy and regain agency.

We started small: identifying where her time and effort were adding the most value, applying the 80/20 rule — the Pareto Principle — which states that, in most cases, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts, so she could protect her energy and focus on outcomes.

The turning point wasn’t dramatic. It was steady. She learned to stabilize herself and her team — even while the system around her remained unstable.

When the job shifts, so should your mindset

Faye’s story isn’t rare.

I’ve seen this play out in dozens of ways:

● Like Julia, who was promoted into her “dream job,” only to have her team cut in half a month later. She learned to treat the role as a prototype — something she could iterate on — rather than a broken promise.

● Or Jackie, who joined a new division under a skeptical leader. Instead of waiting for trust to form, she built it through results — small, visible wins that demonstrated reliability.

These leaders didn’t wait for someone else to fix their conditions.

They decided to get busy trying to make change happen and led within the circumstances they found themselves in — and in doing so, discovered where their real power lay: their mindset.

The 3Rs framework: regain, reframe, redesign

When your role changes faster than you can recalibrate, here’s how to find your footing:

1. Regain stability. Start with what you can control: your time, focus, and energy. Identify what’s essential versus what’s simply noise. Anchor yourself and your team in the non-negotiables.

Ask yourself: What’s mine to own — and what’s not? Where am I spending effort that no longer serves my goals?

2. Reframe the story. “This isn’t what I signed up for” is a valid reaction — but it’s not a sustainable stance. Shift from frustration to curiosity: What does leadership look like here, now?

That shift doesn’t minimize the challenge; it maximizes your adaptability. Leaders who can reframe their reality stay grounded in purpose, not resentment.

3. Redesign your next move. Once stability and perspective return, you can decide whether to rebuild or move on. Sometimes that means redesigning the role to fit the new context; other times, it means preparing an intentional transition.

Either way, the key is choice: reclaiming your agency in a situation that feels out of your hands.

Ask yourself: What would change if you reoriented yourself to succeed in the role you’re in — not the one you expected?

For Faye, just six months after applying this framework, her world looked very different.

She didn’t quit, but she didn’t keep doing things the same way either.

She focused her energy on efforts that made the biggest impact.

She clarified what success looked like — for herself, her stakeholders, and her team.

She stopped trying to deliver the impossible and started delivering the essential.

Ironically, that clarity drove the results she’d been looking for.

Faye hasn’t decided whether she’ll stay long-term. But now, if she leaves, it’ll be from a place of strength, not burnout.

That’s the difference between reacting to instability and leading through it.

Leadership is what you do when the conditions change

We all love the clean start: the new title, the clear vision, the fresh beginning.

But real leadership begins in the messy middle — when what you signed up for isn’t what you’re living, you have the opportunity to choose how to respond.

If you find yourself in that space, here’s what I want you to keep in mind:

● It’s not a failure to acknowledge that the conditions have changed.

● It’s not resignation to reassess what you need for stability under new circumstances.

● And it’s not weakness to say, “I need to shift how I approach this role before it breaks me.”

That’s wisdom.

That’s leadership.

If this topic resonates, I explore it further in my article, How to Lead When the Conditions for Success Suddenly Disappear.

And if you’re navigating a shifting role right now, know this:

Winston Churchill once said, “Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision.”

He’s right. No matter the situation, you choose how you show up.

Sometimes the circumstances require a radical change, sometimes you just need to make an incremental step toward improvement, even if it just makes things 5% better.

That 5% will compound over time. And you'll thank yourself for making the first move.

Remember, doing nothing is still a decision — and you’re worth taking action.