Priorities change. Strategies evolve. Markets shift faster than plans can keep up. For many organisations, constant reprioritisation is no longer a temporary disruption but a defining feature of work. Surveys consistently show that employees now experience more change in a single year than previous generations did over several. According to Gartner, the average organisation has undergone five major enterprise-wide changes in the past three years alone, and employees report feeling increasingly fatigued by the pace and volume of change.

The challenge for leaders is no longer how to prevent change, but how to lead people through it without losing focus, trust, or energy. Research suggests this is becoming harder, not easier. Gartner’s change management research shows that nearly three-quarters of employees report feeling overwhelmed by the amount of change they experience at work, and more than half say they do not understand the reasons behind many of the changes they are asked to implement.

When priorities keep changing, leaders often assume teams are looking first for better plans or firmer decisions. In reality, teams are grappling with something more fundamental. They are trying to understand how to stay oriented, motivated, and engaged when yesterday’s work can be set aside without warning and tomorrow’s direction feels provisional. Studies on employee engagement consistently show that uncertainty and lack of clarity are among the strongest predictors of disengagement, ahead of workload or even compensation.

The emotional impact of constant change is significant. McKinsey research on organisational transformations found that fewer than one in three change efforts succeed in sustaining performance over time, largely because of people-related factors rather than technical ones. Employees cite confusion, loss of trust, and perceived unfairness as key reasons they disengage during periods of repeated change. When priorities shift without explanation, people do not simply adjust their task lists; they begin to question whether their effort matters and whether leadership can be relied upon.

Across organisations, the same expectations surface again and again. Teams want leaders who help them make sense of shifting demands rather than simply passing them on. They look for steadiness when answers are incomplete, fairness when effort feels at risk, autonomy when control tightens, and continuity when the work itself keeps moving. These expectations are not abstract preferences. They shape whether people lean into change or quietly withdraw, whether they contribute discretionary effort or do only what is necessary to get by.

This article explores five ways leaders meet those expectations. It shows how sensemaking, emotional steadiness, fairness, autonomy, and continuity of purpose shape how change is experienced on the ground, and why attending to these human dynamics matters as much as any strategic decision. In an environment where priorities will continue to shift, these leadership capabilities are no longer optional. They are essential.

Sensemaking and cognitive overload

When priorities keep changing, most teams are not confused because they lack intelligence or effort. They are confused because the work no longer hangs together. Tasks arrive faster than meaning. People are asked to move on before they have finished making sense of what just happened.

In these moments, teams are not asking for more updates or better dashboards. They are trying to answer a simpler question: how does this all fit together? When that question remains unanswered, cognitive overload sets in. People spend more energy trying to interpret events than actually doing the work. Research consistently shows that knowledge workers already operate near cognitive capacity; when meaning is unclear, performance drops not because people are unwilling, but because attention is fragmented.

Leaders often underestimate how exhausting this is. Shifting priorities interrupt people’s internal story of their work. One week a project matters, the next week it disappears. Without explanation, people are left to guess whether the change reflects strategy, panic, politics, or poor planning. As the organisational scholar Karl Weick famously observed, “People do not discover meaning; they create it.” In the absence of leadership-led meaning, people invent their own, and those invented stories are rarely generous.

What teams expect from leaders at this point is interpretation. They want someone to slow the moment down and explain why things are changing, what still matters, and how today connects to yesterday. This kind of framing reduces mental strain. It gives people a way to organise their attention and energy. Leaders who do this well are not simplifying reality; they are helping people navigate it. As the psychologist Jerome Bruner noted, “We organise our experience and our memory of human happenings mainly in the form of narrative.” Story is not decoration. It is how people think.

Sensemaking also happens socially. People make meaning together in corridor conversations, chat threads, and quiet debriefs after meetings. When leaders do not create space for shared interpretation, these conversations still happen, just without guidance. That is when misunderstandings spread and cynicism grows. Leaders who invite teams to talk through how they are interpreting change help build a shared narrative rather than a collection of private ones.

When leaders take sensemaking seriously, they do not eliminate complexity. They make it navigable. They reduce wasted cognitive effort and free people to focus on the work that actually matters.

Three leadership moves

  1. Frame every priority shift as a story, not an instruction: Explain what has changed, why it has changed, and what remains stable, so people can reconnect the new work to a coherent narrative.
  2. Create space for shared interpretation: Invite teams to talk openly about how they understand the change and what signals they are noticing, then align on a common story.
  3. Offer clarity that is plausible, not perfect: Provide explanations people can act on now, rather than waiting for full certainty or overwhelming them with detail.

Emotional steadiness when people need answers

When priorities keep changing, people look to leaders for answers. They want to know what to do, what matters now, and what will happen next. What is often missed is that answers only reassure when they come from a leader who appears emotionally grounded. Without steadiness, even accurate answers feel temporary.

In periods of flux, teams scan leaders for signals long before they assess the content of what is being said. Tone, timing, and consistency matter. If answers arrive with visible anxiety, defensiveness, or over-control, people assume those answers will soon be reversed. They hear the unspoken message: this is not settled. Steadiness is what gives answers weight.

This is why false certainty is particularly damaging. Leaders sometimes rush to provide confident declarations simply to reduce discomfort, their own or the team’s. When those answers unravel, trust erodes quickly. Teams stop asking questions and start waiting things out. Over time, this creates a culture of compliance rather than engagement. As the organisational researcher Amy Edmondson has observed, psychological safety depends on people believing that speaking up will not backfire. When answers feel unstable or reactive, that belief disappears.

Steady leaders take a different approach. They offer bounded answers. They are clear about what is decided, what is still open, and what would cause the decision to change. This kind of honesty builds credibility, not doubt. It allows people to act with confidence while staying alert to new information. As Warren Bennis once wrote, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” That translation depends as much on emotional control as it does on clarity of direction.

Emotional steadiness also shapes whether people speak up at all. When leaders respond calmly to questions, doubts, and challenges, teams share better information. Risks surface earlier. Assumptions get tested. When leaders react sharply or defensively, people protect themselves. Concerns stay hidden. Silence replaces contribution. Over time, leaders receive fewer questions and poorer data, even as uncertainty increases.

Importantly, steadiness does not mean slowing decisions or avoiding urgency. It means answering decisively without transmitting panic. It means being honest without amplifying fear. As one senior executive put it in a Harvard Business Review interview, “People don’t need their leaders to be calm; they need them to be steady.” In uncertain conditions, steadiness is what allows teams to move forward with confidence rather than caution.

Three leadership moves:

  1. Give answers with clear boundaries: State what is decided, what is still open, and what would trigger a change, so people know how stable the answer really is.
  2. Match confidence to evidence: Avoid both over-certainty and excessive hedging. Calm, proportionate confidence makes answers believable.
  3. Respond consistently under pressure: Ensure that questions, challenges, and mistakes are met with the same tone and respect, especially when stakes are high.

Fairness when effort feels wasted

When priorities keep changing, one of the quickest ways trust erodes is through a quiet sense of unfairness. Work that mattered last month is suddenly dropped. Long hours invested in a project are written off with little acknowledgement. People begin to wonder whether effort is valued or simply consumed.

This reaction is not just frustration. It is a question of justice. Humans are deeply attuned to whether effort and reward feel balanced. When that balance is disrupted repeatedly, motivation declines. People do not usually rebel; they withdraw. They protect themselves by holding back discretionary effort, lowering emotional investment, or waiting to see whether the next priority will last. As the organisational psychologist J. Stacy Adams argued in his equity theory, people judge fairness not by outcomes alone, but by the relationship between what they give and what they receive.

Teams do not expect every decision to feel good. They do expect decisions to feel fair. Fairness is not about keeping every project alive or shielding people from disappointment. It is about how decisions are made, explained, and acknowledged. Leaders who treat stopped work as meaningless inadvertently tell people that their effort did not matter. Leaders who explicitly recognise the value of that effort send a very different message: this work mattered, even if the context changed.

Transparency plays a central role here. When priorities shift without explanation, people fill in the gaps. They assume politics, favouritism, or incompetence. Even imperfect explanations are better than silence. Leaders who explain decisions through clear principles help people see that trade-offs are grounded in strategy or constraint, not whim. As the management scholar Kim Cameron has noted, “People will accept almost any outcome if they believe the process was fair.” Process fairness often matters more than the decision itself.

Fairness also shows up in how pressure is distributed. Teams notice who is repeatedly asked to stretch, absorb disruption, or pick up abandoned work. When the same individuals or groups consistently carry the cost of change, resentment builds quietly but powerfully. Leaders who pay attention to this dynamic signal respect and shared responsibility. They make visible choices about how burden and flexibility are spread, rather than letting patterns harden by default.

In environments where priorities change frequently, fairness becomes a stabilising force. It reassures people that while the work may shift, their contribution is seen and their effort respected. Leaders who protect fairness preserve trust and keep people willing to commit again, even after disappointment.

Three leadership moves:

  1. Acknowledge the value of stopped work: Name the effort, learning, and contribution explicitly when priorities change, so people do not feel their work was wasted.
  2. Explain decisions through clear principles: Share the reasoning and trade-offs behind changes, focusing on criteria and context rather than personalities or politics.
  3. Distribute pressure visibly and thoughtfully: Pay attention to who absorbs the cost of change and ensure that flexibility and sacrifice are shared fairly over time.

Autonomy and agency when control is reduced

When priorities keep changing, one of the first things people lose is a sense of control. Decisions move upward, approvals tighten, and capable professionals begin to feel they are reacting rather than contributing. Even highly experienced people can start behaving cautiously, not because they lack confidence, but because the ground beneath them feels unstable.

People do not expect full autonomy in uncertain conditions. They understand that volatility requires coordination and constraint. What they do expect is clarity about where they still have discretion. Autonomy does not disappear when environments are unstable, but it does need to be redefined. Without that clarity, people either disengage or try to tightly control whatever small area they can influence. Neither response serves the organisation well.

Leaders often respond to uncertainty by increasing control. This is understandable. It feels safer to centralise decisions and reduce variation. In practice, however, this approach slows work and signals a lack of trust. Momentum is lost not because teams are incapable, but because decision rights are unclear. People stop acting and start waiting. As the management thinker Peter Drucker warned decades ago, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Excessive control prevents people from doing exactly that.

Autonomy works best when it is paired with clear boundaries. When leaders define what must not change, such as standards, values, or outcomes, people are better able to adapt how they work as conditions shift. This combination of freedom and structure allows teams to remain responsive without becoming fragmented. It also reduces the need for constant escalation, freeing leaders to focus on truly strategic decisions.

Agency has a powerful motivational effect. When people feel trusted to make decisions, they remain invested even when plans change. They are more likely to take responsibility for outcomes rather than blaming circumstances or leadership. Research on motivation consistently shows that autonomy is one of the strongest predictors of engagement and performance, particularly in knowledge work. People who experience agency see themselves as partners in navigating uncertainty, not passengers waiting for instructions.

In environments where priorities will continue to shift, autonomy is not a luxury. It is a practical necessity. Leaders who protect agency enable teams to keep moving, learning, and adapting, rather than freezing or disengaging.

Three leadership moves:

  1. Clarify decision boundaries explicitly: State clearly what is fixed and what is flexible, so people know where they can act without seeking permission.
  2. Delegate outcomes, not instructions: Define what needs to be achieved, not exactly how, allowing teams to adapt their approach as priorities evolve.
  3. Reinforce trust through visible support: Stand behind team decisions publicly, especially when conditions change, to show that autonomy is real and not conditional on perfect results.

Continuity of purpose when everything else shifts

When priorities keep changing, the deepest question people ask is rarely about tasks or timelines. It is about identity. Who are we now? Does my work still matter? These questions are often unspoken, but they sit beneath disengagement, cynicism, and quiet withdrawal.

Work is more than a set of activities. For many people, it is a source of meaning, contribution, and professional identity. When priorities reset repeatedly without reference to a stable purpose, commitment erodes. People stop investing emotionally because the ground feels unreliable. This does not happen because people are resistant to change, but because they struggle to locate themselves within it. Teams do not expect leaders to freeze strategy. They expect leaders to hold something steady while strategy evolves.

Continuity of purpose provides that steadiness. It reassures people that while the path may change, the reason for walking it has not. Leaders who consistently connect new priorities to enduring purpose help teams see change as adaptation rather than chaos. As Viktor Frankl observed, “Those who have a why to live can bear almost any how.” In organisational life, purpose functions in much the same way. It gives people a reason to stay engaged even when the work itself keeps shifting.

Continuity also anchors standards. When leaders are clear about what good still looks like, even as goals, timelines, and projects change, people can judge their own work with confidence. Without this anchor, success becomes ambiguous. Teams are unsure whether they are meeting expectations or merely keeping up. Energy drains not because people are incapable, but because effort no longer feels directed. Clear standards tied to purpose restore focus and pride.

Importantly, continuity is not created through slogans or repeated mission statements. It is created through translation. Leaders create continuity when they explicitly link today’s priorities to enduring values, customer commitments, or societal impact. They explain why this work still fits, even if it looks different from last quarter’s work. They also tell the longer story of where the organisation is heading, helping people see current changes as chapters rather than resets.

In environments where priorities will continue to shift, continuity of purpose becomes one of the most powerful stabilising forces available to leaders. It does not eliminate uncertainty, but it gives people a reason to stay committed through it.

Three leadership moves:

  1. Link new priorities to enduring purpose: Explicitly explain how each shift serves the organisation’s deeper mission, values, or commitments.
  2. Reinforce stable standards of success: Clarify what good performance still looks like, even as goals and timelines change, so people can assess their own contribution.
  3. Tell the longer story: Frame change as part of an ongoing journey rather than a series of disconnected initiatives.

Final thoughts

When priorities keep changing, leadership is tested in ways that are easy to underestimate. The challenge is not only strategic or operational. It is human. Each shift places new demands on people’s attention, emotions, motivation, and sense of identity. Over time, the cumulative effect of these demands determines whether teams stay engaged or quietly disengage.

The leaders who succeed in these conditions are not those who promise certainty they cannot deliver. They are those who provide stability of experience. They help people make sense of what is changing and why. They offer answers that are clear enough to act on. They protect fairness when effort feels at risk, preserve autonomy when control tightens, and hold purpose steady when everything else feels provisional.

Taken together, these behaviours explain why some teams continue to perform and adapt even under constant reprioritisation, while others lose energy and trust. The difference is rarely talent or commitment. It is whether leadership absorbs uncertainty or amplifies it.

In a world where change is ongoing rather than episodic, teams no longer judge leaders primarily by the quality of their plans. They judge them by the quality of their presence. By whether they bring clarity without oversimplifying, steadiness without denial, fairness without rigidity, autonomy without abdication, and purpose without nostalgia.

Teams do not expect leaders to eliminate uncertainty. They expect leaders to lead through it, in ways that make work coherent, worthwhile, and human, even when priorities continue to shift.

Three reflection questions for leaders

  1. Where are you asking people to adapt faster than you are helping them understand what has changed and why?
  2. When priorities shift, what signals are you sending about trust, fairness, and whose effort is truly valued?
  3. What do people experience as consistent about your leadership, even when plans, goals, and timelines change?

Do you have any tips or advice for managing uncertainty?

What has worked for you?

Do you have any recommended resources to explore?

Thanks for reading!

Sources

Ashforth, B.E. and Mael, F. (1989) ‘Social identity theory and the organization’, Academy of Management Review, 14(1), pp. 20–39.

Bennis, W. (1989) On becoming a leader. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The narrative construction of reality’, Critical Inquiry, 18(1), pp. 1–21.

Cameron, K.S. (2008) Positive leadership: strategies for extraordinary performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Carton, A.M. (2018) ‘“I’m not mopping the floors, I’m putting a man on the moon”: how NASA leaders enhanced the meaningfulness of work’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 63(2), pp. 323–369.

Collins, J. (2001) Good to great. New York: HarperBusiness.

Collins, J.C. and Porras, J.I. (1996) ‘Building your company’s vision’, Harvard Business Review, 74(5), pp. 65–77.

Colquitt, J.A., Conlon, D.E., Wesson, M.J., Porter, C.O.L.H. and Ng, K.Y. (2001) ‘Justice at the millennium: a meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), pp. 425–445.

Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (2000) ‘The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: human needs and the self-determination of behavior’, Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), pp. 227–268.

Edmondson, A.C. (2012) ‘Teamwork on the fly’, Harvard Business Review, 90(4), pp. 72–80.

Edmondson, A.C. (2018) The fearless organization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Frankl, V.E. (1959) Man’s search for meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.

Gallup (2023) State of the global workplace. Washington, DC: Gallup.

Gartner (2016) Employee engagement survey. Stamford, CT: Gartner.

Gartner (2020) Change fatigue: the impact of continuous change on employees. Stamford, CT: Gartner.

Goleman, D. (1998) ‘What makes a leader?’, Harvard Business Review, 76(6), pp. 93–102.

Heifetz, R., Grashow, A. and Linsky, M. (2009) The practice of adaptive leadership. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kotter, J.P. (1996) Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Maitlis, S. and Christianson, M. (2014) ‘Sensemaking in organizations: taking stock and moving forward’, Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp. 57–125.

McKinsey & Company (2015) ‘Why do most transformations fail?’, McKinsey Quarterly.

Pink, D.H. (2009) Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us. New York: Riverhead Books.

Pratt, M.G. (2000) ‘The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: managing identification among Amway distributors’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 45(3), pp. 456–493.

Sweller, J. (1988) ‘Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning’, Cognitive Science, 12(2), pp. 257–285.

Tyler, T.R. (1990) Why people obey the law. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Weick, K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Weick, K.E. and Roberts, K.H. (1993) ‘Collective mind in organizations: heedful interrelating on flight decks’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(3), pp. 357–381.

Weick, K.E., Sutcliffe, K.M. and Obstfeld, D. (2005) ‘Organizing and the process of sensemaking’, Organization Science, 16(4), pp. 409–421.

Wrzesniewski, A., McCauley, C., Rozin, P. and Schwartz, B. (1997) ‘Jobs, careers, and callings: people’s relations to their work’, Journal of Research in Personality, 31(1), pp. 21–33.