Q&A: How to Handle Changing Directions at Work Without Losing Your Cool

A listener asks how to handle frustration when work on a project is dropped because directions change. Emily Sander shares that this happens often to Chiefs of Staff and explains the value of understanding the reason behind changes, reframing “wasted” work, and managing your emotional response. Helpful strategies include asking why priorities shifted, recognizing that work might be reused later, and focusing on what’s best for the team.

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Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.

Time Stamps:
00:25 Listener Question: When Work Gets Derailed by Changing Priorities

01:17 Step 1: Ask ‘Why Are We Changing Direction?’ (and When to Push Back)

03:07 Explaining the ‘Why’ to the Team Without Needing to Agree

04:08 Reframing ‘Wasted Work’: What Still Carries Forward

05:13 When ‘Unused’ Work Becomes Valuable Later

06:57 Managing the Emotional Whiplash + Refocus on What the Team Needs Next

08:59 Wrap-Up + Next Week + Sponsor Message

Transcript

0:06

Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you.

Step 1: Ask ‘Why Are We Changing Direction?’ (and When to Push Back)

Explaining the ‘Why’ to the Team Without Needing to Agree

Reframing ‘Wasted Work’: What Still Carries Forward

When ‘Unused’ Work Becomes Valuable Later

Managing the Emotional Whiplash + Refocus on What the Team Needs Next

Wrap-Up + Next Week + Sponsor Message

emily-sander_1_02-18-2026_150928 0:25

All right, listener question time. This anonymous listener says, Emily, first of all, thanks a million for the show. I listen every week and always get something I can take away. My question for you is I keep running into this situation that makes me annoyed slash frustrated. It's when I start work on something, say an initiative, a project, or just a request from my boss, and then we change direction. The work has been wasted and I get super frustrated and annoyed. Do you hear this from other chiefs of staff? Yes. And what do you do about it? Okay. Uh, yes. Yes and yes. I hear this all the time from other chiefs of staff, so that you are certainly not alone in this. And please don't feel like it is a you thing. It is a role thing, a chief of staff role thing and just something that happens. I would say for business professionals in Here's what I would think about. So the initial thing would be, why are we changing directions? Asking yourself, asking your boss, making sure you have the answer for that. And the reason you wanna answer for that is that can make the decision clear. You might be like, oh, forget my work. Absolutely. Let's go over here. We have this thing on the table. Like, forget my work. I don't even care. It could also be useful for why are we doing this? You get the answer. It's not a good one. Maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe we shouldn't change direction. Hold on, hold on. Should we stay the course and like get this thing done? At least this, uh, you said project initiative, at least get this first phase of the project done. Let the team complete that, and then we can switch, then we can switch everyone over to this new thing that's going on. Um, it might not be a good idea anytime. Like, no, we should never do that. So if you have a principal who is. Like, flighty might not be the right word, but changes their mind or forgets what they said before or like doesn't understand the downstream impacts to the team and having people work on so many things. It might be in you asking for like, what's behind this? Or like, why are we doing this? Or what's, you know, what's the motivation? Why are we switching directions here? It might be like, oh. Uh, founder has gone into like vision mode and wants all the stuff and things, and that actually, um, is gonna throttle the team and delay what she wants more. That's gonna, it's gonna further delay this, and she actually doesn't want that. So in order to get her what she wants, I have to say, Hey look, it's actually gonna be closer to what she want if we did this first and then let me pull half the team off, but keep half the team on it and then pull half the team onto this new initiative that we have in six weeks time. And that might be a conversation. So asking the why and understanding the why behind it is super valuable, even if it's just for your understanding. Peace of mind or just, just knowledge. Like, okay, I understand the why. I understand how she got there. I don't agree with it. Mind you, I don't agree with this decision, but I understand like how she got there and why we're doing this. Okay. I understand the why, so that I can explain the why and the context to other people who might have the same question and same reaction that I had. Like, hold on, I just spent nights and weekends on this project, and now you're saying it's wasted. You gotta sometimes be able to deliver that message to others in an accurate and. Full way. So asking the why is important for that. Again, doesn't mean you have to agree with it. There might very well be times when you wholeheartedly disagree, but if you understand the thought process, that can help with your conversation with yourself and your conversation with other people. The notion of, of feeling like work is wasted. Super common. Super common. And that's one of the worst feelings, right? It's like, look, I worked on this. I could have done so many different things with this time and energy, and now you're saying it's all wasted. What the heck? What I would say there is wasted is a strong word, and wasted can be an assumption as well. So it might be, Hey, I worked on this. We're gonna park it for a period of time and then we're gonna come back to it. All my work I did is still valid, is still valuable. It's just isn't being used in sequence, which might be mildly annoying, but not as annoying as like everything I did is for not. It is for not, it's for nothing. So it could be, it's not right now, we're not gonna use this right now. It could be that, Hey, look, I did this whole thing and. We're gonna use this part of it. It's like this initial data pool. We could absolutely still use. The way we're slicing and dicing and presenting the data is different. Okay? So, I mean, not all of it is quote unquote wasted in that sense. it could be that it looks like and feels like everything's wasted at the beginning and then. Later on, you just, just you going through that process and that exercise in your head and internalizing some of the numbers or analysis that you did in this dataset, let's say. Maybe that becomes incredibly valuable in a conversation later on, maybe when we're, the team is trying to make a decision and everyone's throwing darts the wall and like getting data points and like pulling different angles and talking about different factors you can speak to. This data set or this vantage point, or let's look at it through this lens because you actually did that work, so no one else has that. You didn't even send out that data set or report, but because you went through that exercise, you kind of have it in the back of your head and you're able to reference it, or you're able to make a recommendation or you're able to say, uh, hold on. We might not be able to do it that way. This way might be better. It might be closer to what we want. It might be faster. Oh, whoa. How did you know that? Because of the, of this data I pulled over here. So it might not be wasted in the overall sense. It might feel like and look like initially it's like, okay, I was asked for this report. I did a lot of the report, and then no one looked at my report, sad face, annoyed face, frustrated emoji, and then later on it's like, thank God that I went through that exercise.'cause I was able to bring this part to bear in a really important and critical conversation. Okay, so that's a way to kind of say, Hey, this is, this is, uh, not totally wasted. It might be very useful in a way that I can't predict right now in a way that I can't see right now. The other thing to do here is try to minimize the emotional turmoil this creates in you. And I know sometimes that's easier said than done, but this will happen. This scenario will occur as chief of staff. Just, just expect it to. And so you can let that thrash you around like, oh my gosh. Like, okay, I gotta go like walk around the block and blow off steam and do all these things and whine and moan and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like go through this whole process. Or it could be okay. Just got the email that we're stopping that. And I did. I spent all last week doing that. I spent all of my time last week. I could have gotten so many other things done. I could have gotten so much done if I didn't work on that project. Okay, breath. I feel annoyed. No. Scratch that. I feel extremely frustrated right now. This is frustrating. All right, let me make sure I know the why. Yes. It says it in this email. That makes sense. Okay. That makes total sense actually. All right. Let me move to the next step. What is best for the team? What's best for the team? What does the team need? Where's my principal at? Where are the team members? Do they need conversations? Do they need information? Do they need clarification? All these things, how do we move forward? So figuring out the best way for you to not let. Emotional turmoil unleash in your world when this occurs. So you can minimize it, you can work through it, you can process it, figure out what's best for you. So basically you don't freak out when this happens. You don't freak out unnecessarily. It might be like, this word's a little bit of a freak out, Emily. Fine. Sure go do it. But unnecessarily to the point of like. This is, there's, there's no use anymore. Like we're beating a dead horse. There's no use. I'm spinning my wheels. Most of us kind of know when we tip over into that section or that part of the process, and in that case, okay, hold on. Clear head, feet planted. Eyes forward. Watch next. And with that, I'll catch you next week on leveraging leadership.

9:05

This episode is brought to you by Next Level Coaching. If you or anyone you know would like to learn more about executive leadership coaching, please visit www.next level Coach.