Mining Institutional Battles for Justice Seeds

Think back to each piece of what I’ve shared here: the strain when reading the non-compete language buried in a lengthy contract, the institutional conflict that followed and our refusal to compromise our values, leading to the courage, cooperation, influence, and systems we’ve built from the seeds hidden within that conflict. Now, think long and hard about the similar scenarios you’ve faced. Yours didn’t look the same, but I’m sure they exist. The question I have for you is: Did you find your seeds to equal or greater benefit and have you nurtured them to take full advantage of each of your adversities?

Without doing everything in our power to extract every possible seed from those adversities, and then pouring our heart and soul into nurturing each seed, talking about the hand we were dealt is little more than a sob story. What I’ve shared with you here is anything but that - and I hope the same holds true for you.

To be sure you’re able to take full advantage of the greater benefit from every institutional adversity you’ve gone to bat against, dedicate the time to work through these five questions in detail:

1. What institutional battle or systems misalignment still carries weight?
2. What blind spot or habit did it reveal, and what seed (e.g., justice or responsibility) was hidden?
3. How could a principled stand strengthen your courage or cooperation?
4. In what ways might nurturing this seed improve your influence without title—at home, work, or community?
5. What three small, immediate actions can you take this week to plant and nurture it?

All too often, working through honest, thought out responses to questions like these require more time than we care to invest. And the emotional toll can be even heavier. That said, targeted reflection is exactly what we need if we ever hope to turn institutional adversities into leadership lessons that forge values-alignment. My challenge for you here and now is to answer each of these TODAY and share one action step with someone you trust to hold you accountable to living it out. If you do, I believe you’ll be more prepared than ever to adapt to the unforeseeable situations that follow - and they absolutely will follow - so that’s what we’ll work through next.