Asher's Blog

I don’t hate a lot of things, but one behavior that genuinely gets to me is when someone takes advantage of another person simply because they have the power and the opportunity to do so. There is something deeply unfair about it, and whenever I come across it, especially when it involves someone within my circle, I find it very hard to stay on the sidelines. I naturally lean into those situations, sometimes more than I should, because I feel a strong sense of responsibility to step in and help restore balance where it has clearly been tilted.

This was tested recently in a situation involving one of my mentees.

The Man Before the Title

He had just become the president of an international association, and in that role, he had started engaging at very high levels, meeting with officials across the Nigerian government, the U.S., and even Finland. But my connection to him didn’t start there. I knew him long before the title and the recognition, back when all he had was his work ethic and his values.

I had seen him make difficult choices when no one was watching and I had watched how he chose integrity over convenience in moments where most people would have taken the easier route. Because of that, I had already decided, even before this situation, that if he ever needed support, I would show up.

Shortly after he assumed office, he got involved in what seemed like a routine administrative process. He agreed to authenticate certain documents alongside outgoing executives who were still active within the system. At the time, it didn’t look like anything serious. It felt procedural, something that just needed to be done so things could move forward. But leadership has a way of exposing what has been sitting beneath the surface for a long time.

When he fully stepped into the role, he discovered that the organisation was carrying significant liabilities. And instead of ignoring it or managing it quietly, he chose to disclose it. That decision alone tells you a lot about a person, because transparency is rarely the easiest option, especially when you have just taken over something and could easily distance yourself from past issues.

But months later, the narrative began to change. The same environment that allowed those liabilities to exist started shifting responsibility towards him, and before long, the pressure began to build. The Board of Trustees started pushing, first subtly, then more directly, with the expectation that he should step down.

Fight for Your Integrity, Even When You Don’t Care About the Position

What struck me the most in that moment was not just the situation itself, but how close he came to walking away. Not because he was guilty, but because he genuinely did not care enough about the position to fight for it. He wasn’t attached to the title, and in his mind, stepping down would have been the easier path. Less noise, less stress, less conflict.

But that is where one of the most important lessons from that experience became very clear to me.

Dwight D. Eisenhower said that “the supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” And integrity is not something you walk away from simply because you are tired, or because the role attached to it does not mean much to you. If anything, the less you care about the position, the more you should care about what your name represents when you leave it behind.

Because life has a way of circling back. At some point, someone will ask questions. They will not ask about how stressful the situation was or how unfair it felt. They will simply ask why you stepped down. And if your answer does not clearly defend your integrity, you leave room for doubt to grow over time.

I was genuinely glad that he chose to stay and fight it through. It was not easy, and there were moments where it would have been simpler to just let it go. But he stayed the course, addressed the issues head-on, and resolved the situation in a way that didn’t just clear his name but it actually reinforced his credibility. Interestingly, even people who had initially questioned him ended up acknowledging how well he handled it. And that is the thing about leading through chaos, people may resist you in the middle of it, but they often respect you once it is done.

Factions Are Normal. Stop Taking It Personally.

Another thing I observed very clearly through that experience is how normal factions are, even in environments that claim to be objective or structured. We like to believe that decisions are made based on facts, logic, and fairness. But in reality, people are often influenced by their own interests, sometimes consciously, and sometimes without even realising it.

As Nelson Mandela once observed, “every group feels that its cause is just and its means are justified.” Two people can look at the exact same situation and come to completely different conclusions, not because one is right and the other is wrong, but because they are standing in different positions with different incentives.

Once you understand that, it becomes easier to detach emotionally from opposition. You stop interpreting every disagreement as a personal attack and start seeing it for what it usually is, a reflection of where people stand and what they are trying to protect. That shift alone can save you enormous amounts of energy, because instead of reacting emotionally, you begin to respond strategically. You engage with the situation for what it is, not what it feels like.

Clarity Is Your Anchor

When everything around you is noisy, when different narratives are flying and people are pulling you in different directions, you need to be deeply grounded in what your actual objective is.

Henry Kissinger put it plainly: “If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.” Without that clarity, you end up reacting to everything and everyone, and before you know it, you have lost control of your own direction.

In his case, the objective was clear, protect his integrity and ensure that the truth was properly established. That clarity made it easier to decide what to engage with and what to ignore. It prevented him from getting pulled into side conversations that had nothing to do with the core issue. In chaos, clarity is not a luxury. It is a survival tool.

Overcommunicate. Then Communicate Again.

One of the biggest mistakes people make during conflict is assuming that silence will protect them, or that people will somehow understand their intentions without them being clearly expressed. But silence creates space, and that space gets filled very quickly, usually with assumptions that are not in your favour.

George Bernard Shaw captured it well: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” In situations like this, you almost have to overcommunicate, not in a defensive way, but in a way that keeps every stakeholder aligned with what is actually happening. People don’t just need you to make the right decisions. They need to understand those decisions. Otherwise, they start building their own version of events, and that version rarely serves you.

Protect Your Emotional Stability

Then there is the emotional side of it, which I think is consistently underestimated.

Leading through chaos is draining. It comes with a kind of pressure that doesn’t always show on the surface, and if you don’t have a way to process that pressure, it starts to quietly affect how you think and how you respond. You might find yourself becoming reactive, impatient, or withdrawn, not because that is who you are, but because you are carrying more than you have released.

Timber Hawkeye said something that I keep coming back to: “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.”

What helped in this situation was having outlets. Spaces where the pressure could be expressed without consequences. Whether it was honest conversations, physical activity, or simply moments of quiet reflection, there was a deliberate effort to not let everything stay bottled up. Because emotional stability is not about not feeling anything. It is about being able to feel everything and still respond with control.

What Chaos Reveals

When I reflect on the entire situation and other situations like it, what stands out most is not just the resolution, it is the process.

Chaos has a way of revealing people but also it tremendously adds to your personal growth. It also shows you what you are willing to fight for, what you are willing to tolerate, and how you show up when things are not going your way. The people who watched my mentee go through this came out of it with a clearer picture of who he is than years of smooth sailing would ever have shown them. And in the end, that is what leadership really is. It is not how you perform when everything is working. It is how you carry yourself when things are not.

The chaos will pass. But who will it reveal, and who will you become after?