Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles is at the center of controversy surrounding the bronze medal she was awarded for the floor exercise individual final at the Paris Olympics.

Chiles was awarded the bronze after an inquiry in scoring adjusted an error that had her score lower than it should have been.

The judges upheld the inquiry, and Chiles went on to the medal ceremony where she was part of the silver and gold medal winners.

Days later, her medal status came into question again after Romanian team officials protested, arguing that the U.

S.

team filed an inquiry about Chiles' score too late, four seconds after the allotted timeframe for disputes.

An independent court agreed, stating that the U.

S.

team's inquiry came late, reducing Chiles' score.

As a result, Romania's Ana Barbosu was awarded the bronze, and Chiles was asked to return the bronze medal.

The USA Gymnastics challenged that ruling with video evidence showcasing that the initial inquiry was indeed filed within the allotted time.

Despite the new evidence, the Court of Arbitration for Sport declined to reconsider the ruling.

The rationale, as told to USAG, is that 'their rules don't allow for an arbitral award to be reconsidered, even when conclusive new evidence is presented.

' USAG stated, 'we are deeply disappointed by the notification and will continue to pursue every possible avenue and appeal process, including to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, to ensure the just scoring, placement, and medal award for Jordan.

'People around the U.

S.

have lots of thoughts on the way the whole situation went down and are expressing their support in a number of ways.

As the world continues to follow along with the evolving saga, there are a few critical lessons for marketers and leaders that must be pointed out overall, as well as from an inclusive marketing lens.

USAG has done a stellar job of fighting for Jordan Chiles throughout the process.

It started when her score was initially tallied wrong, and it continues with their ongoing fight to ensure Jordan gets to keep her bronze medal.

Good leaders stand by and fight for their people.

They do it when there is little risk, and they do it in the face of fierce opposition and obstacles.

This isn't always the case on teams within organizations, and it is also a big problem with brands standing up for underrepresented and underserved communities.

In the face of much backlash last year, we saw many brands choosing not to stand by their people, including Bud Light with the Dylan Mulvaney debacle.

Many brands, nervous about negative feedback, decided against standing up for and serving the LGBTQ+ community for Pride month campaigns and beyond.

When someone who is associated with your brand, be it a team member, influencer, or even a community you want to serve, finds themselves in a challenging situation, don't further the harm by abandoning them.

Stand up for, stand with, and fight to ensure your people get the positive outcomes they desire.

Lyft stood up for its drivers and passengers when restrictive abortion laws were passed in Texas back in 2021.

The new law stated any private citizen could sue anyone who assisted a person in getting an abortion after 6 weeks, even someone like a Lyft driver who drove someone to a clinic for a procedure.

Leaders at Lyft and Uber vowed to cover any of its drivers that were sued under that law.

Lyft also made a $1 million donation to Planned Parenthood 'to ensure that transportation is never a barrier to healthcare access.

'The second lesson for leaders is to ensure that you don't let broken systems prevent you from dismantling unjust systems and decisions, or from doing what is right.

When presented with conclusive evidence that it had made the wrong decision with regard to Chiles' bronze medal, the CAS decided to just accept that their decision was an error because rules didn't allow for fixing an error.

There are lots of broken systems in the world.

And good people are harmed by those broken systems every day.

Instead of saying 'that's just the way it is,' and giving the system the final say, use your power to make changes to the system, or any other unjust barrier that prevents the right thing from happening.

Lead your teams in updating outdated systems and ways of doing things to fit the needs of the people you serve today.

Growth requires it.

Progress requires it.

It used to be law in the U.

S.

that people could own other people.

It used to be law in the U.

S.

that women couldn't vote, or own a credit card.

These laws were unjust and caused problems for a lot of people.

Retailer received a lot of backlash earlier this year in how it handled a request for parental leave from a new mom caring for her baby in the NICU.

Kyte Baby founder made the initial decision about denying the worker's leave request based upon company policy.

After lots of negative feedback and good discourse, the brand updated its parental leave policies to give team members more time off.

Rules and systems made by people should not be accepted as a permanent constraint to not do the right thing for people.

Use whatever power, privilege, and influence you do have to ensure you don't enable harm, unjust acts, and bad decisions by accepting that rules and systems that don't serve the greater good cannot be changed.

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations.

We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's guidelines.

We've summarized some of those key rules below.

Simply put, keep it civil.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines.

Please read the full list of posting rules found on our site.