diff --git a/pkg/registry/rbac/rest/storage_rbac.go b/pkg/registry/rbac/rest/storage_rbac.go
index 7d1d290c83b..c25c7d4ce6b 100644
--- a/pkg/registry/rbac/rest/storage_rbac.go
+++ b/pkg/registry/rbac/rest/storage_rbac.go
@@ -165,6 +165,7 @@ func (p *PolicyData) EnsureRBACPolicy() genericapiserver.PostStartHookFunc {
 		// initializing roles is really important.  On some e2e runs, we've seen cases where etcd is down when the server
 		// starts, the roles don't initialize, and nothing works.
 		err := wait.Poll(1*time.Second, 30*time.Second, func() (done bool, err error) {
+			failedReconciliation := false
 
 			coreclientset, err := corev1client.NewForConfig(hookContext.LoopbackClientConfig)
 			if err != nil {
@@ -224,6 +225,7 @@ func (p *PolicyData) EnsureRBACPolicy() genericapiserver.PostStartHookFunc {
 				if err != nil {
 					// don't fail on failures, try to create as many as you can
 					utilruntime.HandleError(fmt.Errorf("unable to reconcile clusterrole.%s/%s: %v", rbac.GroupName, clusterRole.Name, err))
+					failedReconciliation = true
 				}
 			}
 
@@ -254,6 +256,7 @@ func (p *PolicyData) EnsureRBACPolicy() genericapiserver.PostStartHookFunc {
 				if err != nil {
 					// don't fail on failures, try to create as many as you can
 					utilruntime.HandleError(fmt.Errorf("unable to reconcile clusterrolebinding.%s/%s: %v", rbac.GroupName, clusterRoleBinding.Name, err))
+					failedReconciliation = true
 				}
 			}
 
@@ -283,6 +286,7 @@ func (p *PolicyData) EnsureRBACPolicy() genericapiserver.PostStartHookFunc {
 					if err != nil {
 						// don't fail on failures, try to create as many as you can
 						utilruntime.HandleError(fmt.Errorf("unable to reconcile role.%s/%s in %v: %v", rbac.GroupName, role.Name, namespace, err))
+						failedReconciliation = true
 					}
 				}
 			}
@@ -315,9 +319,14 @@ func (p *PolicyData) EnsureRBACPolicy() genericapiserver.PostStartHookFunc {
 					if err != nil {
 						// don't fail on failures, try to create as many as you can
 						utilruntime.HandleError(fmt.Errorf("unable to reconcile rolebinding.%s/%s in %v: %v", rbac.GroupName, roleBinding.Name, namespace, err))
+						failedReconciliation = true
 					}
 				}
 			}
+			// failed to reconcile some objects, retry
+			if failedReconciliation {
+				return false, nil
+			}
 
 			return true, nil
 		})