diff --git a/changelog/unreleased/SOLR-17972-distributed-lock-lead.yml b/changelog/unreleased/SOLR-17972-distributed-lock-lead.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..da5b8d7e5141
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/unreleased/SOLR-17972-distributed-lock-lead.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+title: Retry creation of ZK lock on transient connection loss.
+type: fixed
+authors:
+  - name: Pierre Salagnac
+links:
+  - name: SOLR-17972
+    url: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR-17972
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/ZkDistributedLock.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/ZkDistributedLock.java
index b9fedc5e0763..a1603c98bb32 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/ZkDistributedLock.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/ZkDistributedLock.java
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ protected ZkDistributedLock(SolrZkClient zkClient, String lockDir, String lockNo
                 + lockNodePrefix,
             null,
             CreateMode.EPHEMERAL_SEQUENTIAL,
-            false);
+            true);
 
     sequence = getSequenceFromNodename(lockNode);
   }