Leading When the Story Keeps Changing
By Sophie Makonnen
What happens when you work with someone whose version of events keeps changing? It's not about :
disagreement
a different perspective.
interpretation,
two people remembering the same moment differently, or
seeing things differently.
It is about working when the ground keeps moving under basic facts. This is close to what many describe as gaslighting in the workplace, where reality is repeatedly questioned or reframed, making people doubt what they know they heard or saw.
The inconsistencies are often small. What was said in one meeting is presented differently in the next. An agreement shifts slightly depending on who is asking. Details are adjusted, context is added or removed, emphasis changes. No single instance seems dramatic enough to confront. But the pattern accumulates.
It shows up when accounts shift over time. When what was said, decided, or agreed upon is later reframed, when facts are adjusted, denied, or presented differently depending on circumstance or audience. When the story you heard no longer corresponds to the story being told. Each instance seems too small to address directly, yet ignoring the pattern is impossible.
It becomes exhausting. Not because the work is complex, but because attention is constantly pulled toward checking, confirming, and foreseeing the next inconsistency. The contradictions keep resurfacing. They show up in meetings, in emails, in decisions that no longer rest on stable ground.
When this happens consistently, energy moves away from the work and into verification, protection, and record-keeping. Decisions are slow because nothing can be taken at face value. Trust erodes quietly, not through open conflict, but through repeated doubt, often without being named.
Much of the public conversation around workplace gaslighting focuses on how to protect yourself when a manager distorts facts or reframes agreements. Several recent business articles outline warning signs and recommend documenting conversations or confirming decisions in writing. Those steps can be useful. But the question here is different. What happens when you are part of a team, or leading one, and shared reality itself becomes unstable?
For managers, this is not simply a relational issue or communication glitch. It becomes an operating condition. When shared reality becomes unstable, leaders are no longer only responsible for direction and results, but for protecting the conditions that allow people to work, speak, and decide with confidence.
What It Does to the Work and the Team
In such gaslighting‑type environments, this erosion of shared reality slowly undermines confidence, initiative, and psychological safety for the whole team.
When this happens with a peer, the impact is already heavy. The work slows because nothing can be assumed. Agreements have to be rechecked. Decisions lose weight because they can later be verbally undone.
People react differently. Some become meticulously careful, moving trust from people to paper. Some try talking it through, then get frustrated or even angry when nothing changes. Some stay silent but gossip or complain to colleagues. Some detach, not by leaving, but by withdrawing energy and presence while staying physically in place. Whatever the response, energy moves away from the actual work. Unavoidably, frustration goes up and restlessness settles in.
When you are leading a team, the effect multiplies. What destabilizes you begins to shape how others work. Team members notice inconsistencies even if they cannot name them. They hesitate before speaking. They document more than necessary, disengage, or become guarded or even grouchy. Initiative drops out due to withdrawal or excessive caution. People learn that what matters is not what was decided, but how it might later be reframed.
As a leader, this creates a double responsibility.
You carry the operational drag of constant verification while also holding the ethical line for the team. Protecting people means preventing them from absorbing invisible risk, being blamed for shifting narratives, or normalizing behaviour that erodes accountability. Allowing unstable facts to stand unchallenged does not just affect efficiency. It quietly reshapes what the team believes is acceptable.
These dynamics are not theoretical. They show up in real leadership situations, often quietly, and often long before they are named.
Two Examples from Practice
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In one role, a head of a unit under my supervision repeatedly created problems that surfaced only once they had become urgent. Issues did not come to my attention when they were small or manageable, but when they had already developed into something that could not be ignored.
When I tried to understand how these situations had developed, I consistently traced them back to the same point. Decisions had been taken without follow-through. Details had been missed. Mistakes were not acknowledged. Instead, explanations shifted. Responsibility blurred. The story of how we got there was never quite the same twice.
At first, there was no single incident to point to. Nothing dramatic. Just a pattern that was hard to name and impossible to resolve through conversation alone.
I proceeded to document what happened, not with the intention of building a case, but because nothing else held. The team he supervised was reluctant to speak. Not because they had nothing to say, but because they were afraid of being exposed to the consequences of contradicting him. Over time, documentation became the only way to stabilize the work.
That process took months. During that time, the office lost momentum. Clients began to lose confidence. Gossip filled the gaps left by silence and uncertainty. Eventually, the accumulated record made the pattern visible to the organization. Only then could it be addressed.
What became clear later was that this was not new behaviour. Similar issues had occurred before, in other departments, and had been quietly absorbed or redirected. The cost of not naming it earlier had simply been redistributed.
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This dynamic surfaces even in advisory roles.
A coaching client held a non-operational, honorary leadership position in addition to her regular job. She had accepted it for the experience and because she sincerely believed in the organization's mission. The role was intended to provide judgment and a strategic perspective. I'll refer to her as Sarah.
Over time, the role became difficult to sustain. The issue was not disagreement or group tension. It centred on one individual whose accounts of events were consistently unreliable.
Agreements were later reframed. Actions were described that others could not confirm. Responsibility for inaction shifted quietly. Eventually, nothing could be taken at face value.
The effect was erosion, not conflict. Sarah began verifying everything. Trust gave way to skepticism. Engagement turned into restraint. An advisory role without reliable information became hollow.
What made the situation particularly hard was the absence of a clear response. Escalation felt disproportionate. Confrontation risked being misread. Stepping away seemed premature. In the end, given the nature of the role, Sarah chose to refocus her energy on other business engagements. The biggest loser was the organization, which could not benefit from her experience and insights. This is another quiet cost of distorted reality. Sometimes it does not end in rupture. It ends in withdrawal.
How Leaders Can Adapt
The response in both situations was quiet and pragmatic. Documentation. Reduced exposure. Careful management of what could and could not be stabilized.
Confrontation rarely works in these situations, particularly because the inconsistencies often start small, too minor to seem worth addressing. Some will argue that accountability requires confrontation with the facts. Maybe. If it works, great. But such accountability assumes the person operates within a shared reality. When someone consistently reframes facts depending on context, the confrontation itself becomes another event to be reframed later. By the time the pattern becomes obvious, a conversation is insufficient, given how the situation has evolved.
In such cases, the managers adapted to calm the situation, not to "fix the other person". They documented, not out of suspicion, but because memory alone no longer held. Decisions were confirmed in writing, not to corner anyone, but to anchor what the work was moving on. They were confused because of the contradictions. Scope narrowed. Exposure was reduced. In one case, the leader compensated silently to keep the office functioning. In the other, the person eventually reduced her own exposure by refocusing energy elsewhere.
None of this is ideal.
These adaptations were not solutions to the inconsistencies. They were containment approaches. They bought time. They aimed to reduce harm. They kept the work from unravelling while waiting to see if the organization would act.
In some organizations, clarity and action eventually come. In others, especially where the behaviour has gone unchecked for years, progress depends on documentation, patterns, and repeated confirmation. That takes time, often longer than expected.
In my experience, leaders should not expect a moment of revelation. There is rarely an admission. Rarely a sudden stabilization of the story. If the pattern has been to operate through shifting accounts, it does not stop because the inconsistency is named.
Yes, it is exhausting. And it is time-consuming. That is the reality. Leadership positions are not only about strategy or delivery. They are also about managing people and protecting teams when conditions are unstable. Holding the work together, keeping shared reality intact, and absorbing complexity so others can function is part of the role, even when it is sometimes uncomfortable, slow and sometimes frustrating.
No Resolution, Only Choices
People who shift their stories are in the workplace. They are not rare. You cannot always avoid them, and the pattern does not stop on its own. Documentation buys you clarity, not necessarily action. This strategy may limit the spread, not damage. Whether you lead a team or work alongside others, protecting people where you can matters, even when you cannot protect them completely. Sometimes it resolves. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes you stay. Sometimes you leave. The only constant is the calculation: what you can tolerate, what you will absorb, and where your line is.
Final word
This approach may frustrate some readers. It seems passive: document, contain, wait for the organization to act. Where is the direct solution? Where is the accountability? The reality is that there is no clean solution when someone consistently reframes facts. Containment is not satisfying. Documentation is tedious. Waiting is exhausting. But when the alternative is letting the distortion spread unchecked or absorbing the cost silently, these strategies become necessary, even when they feel inadequate.
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