The resilience in nurses! Even when sadness or anger are visible at the surface, compassion and openness are at the beating heart. You don’t have to wait long to see a nurse go back to the drawing board and try again.

When we have responsibility without authority, when decisions about us get made without us, we lose. We lose autonomy, dignity, and belonging. Until one day it’s nothing but an endless string of losses. The waves of grief threaten to drown.

Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story.

A headwind can be used to propel forward movement using a maneuver called “tacking”. In the moment it looks as though the sailboat is being pushed off course, but in fact it’s making a calculated adjustment in service of it’s vision.

Link a series of these adjustments together and you quickly see that the ship is playing a strategic, long game. Each adjustment is oriented in a general direction that, over time, guides the ship into harbor.

We’ve seen it time and again: A small group harnesses the headwinds of culture to create culture change. It’s not an “escape fire”, just a relentless voyage toward equity, sustainability, and human flourishing.

No authority? Fine. Formal authority isn’t a prerequisite for leadership.

What direction are you tacking in?