7
OPINION
Malk and fried chicken
C an I offer you a substitute? We are out of milk. I just put oat malk in my coffee this morning. That’s not a misspelling, it’s a real thing. Actually, it’s a substitute for real milk, so not even the real thing. But I put it in my coffee this morning and I’m sitting here mourning the loss of that genuine dairy filled brew that I can never get back. Integrity in leadership is sacrosanct and you must fight the urge to dilute your brand with cheap substitutes and compromised values.
Brandon Pinkerton, PE
I am suddenly aware that we live in a world filled with options and alternatives. Some are designed to suit our individual preferences; others can meet specific needs. And then there are the knockoffs that claim to offer all the benefits of the genuine article at a reduced price or perhaps solve some trendy problem that we didn’t even know we needed to solve until it showed up on social media. I distinctly remember growing up in a world where we had two types of milk in the store: the one with the red cap and the one with the green cap. That was it, there was no oat malk, almond milk, soy milk, nut pods, etc. And now I have two gallons of the alternative in my fridge. Along your journey, you will be asked to modify and expand your leadership offerings to your organization. This expectation is reasonable at some level because within your ever-expanding sphere of influence you
will find wide varieties of needs and challenges that don’t meet the “one size fits all” criteria. But if you spread your leadership offering too thin, you risk diluting your brand and begin to let compromises creep in that take you far away from your leadership philosophy and down a path away from the vision. On the periphery I am aware of cable channels like Hallmark and Lifetime. I don’t watch them, but I have friends (both men and women) who love the programming; particularly the holiday movies that start running right after Halloween and through the New Year. According to Lifetime, their channel “is committed to offering the highest quality entertainment and information programming.” That sounds like a noble endeavor, right?
See BRANDON PINKERTON, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER JANUARY 13, 2025, ISSUE 1568
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