Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek. 

Politics has intruded excessively of late, like the uninvited guest who turns up for dinner and is still there after midnight.

You can’t even sit quietly at a bar, accompanied by a murder novel, without overhearing someone decry at least one political leader and utter at least two very common curse words.

Still, because you continue to participate in society, you’ll likely have heard that just over a week ago the Trump administration decided to perform a belated Open Sesame operation on the government, one that will please many in the business world.

You’ll also likely have heard every pundit alive concur that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi dominated (or not) Donald Trump in the brinkspersonship that all negotiation standoffs require.

You may not have heard, however, that the Shutdown had led the leadership of the United Airlines Flight Attendants to call for a general strike.

Yes, a strike of all workers to get the Trump administration to return governmental and business life to (something vaguely approximating) normal.

While you were either lauding or decrying Pelosi, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA president, Sara Nelson, was offering some stirring words here and there. She even encouraged Flight Attendants to protest at the offices of their Congressional Representatives.

Most telling, perhaps, was a speech she made to union leaders that — as modern vernacular has it — went viral.

I try to leave politics aside at all times, as I’ve met too many politicians.

Here, I want to focus on Nelson’s delivery of sincerity.

Oh, she’s perfectly wise to the political world, I’m sure. She’s also not universally admired by her own fellow United Airlines Flight Attendants. Which leader is?

However, watch these few minutes and you might at the very least feel she knows how to deliver an authentic speech.

That’s a lot more difficult than it might appear.

It’s strange that, in an era where we’re begging for at least a tinge of authenticity, we’re confronted with a barrel-full of mendacity every waking day from seemingly every side.

And not just in politics.

Executives, managers and even co-workers can be just as duplicitous as politicians. Because, quite often, they are politicians.

Yet here’s Nelson defending federal workers with a believably personal zeal:

For years, the right has vilified Federal workers as nameless, faceless bureaucrats. But the truth is they’re Air Traffic Controllers, they’re Food Inspectors, they’re Transportation Security Officers and law enforcement. They’re the people who live in our communities and they’re being hurt.

Those were just some of her words.

But watch and listen to how she balances choosing precise words with delivering those words in a way that encourages you to believe.

She paces her thoughts, so that her listeners can fully absorb one, before another comes along. She’s in no hurry.

As she talks about not using the term patriot glibly, as she describes how she and her fellow Flight Attendants “know what happens when there is a gap in security,” she conveys deep conviction and clear anger, without ever quite sinking toward hectoring or shallow manipulation.

It’s a very fine line.

She makes you feel as if she believes every word she’s saying and that every word she’s saying means a great deal.

She addresses directly those whom she deems responsible. In this case, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.

She explains how high the stakes truly are, from her own personal experience. And I suspect that, for many people, this works.

For the moment, there’s at least a little breathing room for the politicians to do what politicians do best, which is to make themselves look good and hopefully even richer.

Few of them can manage anything approaching authenticity for that very reason.

Yet, as income inequality increases in the same disturbing rhythm as economic uncertainty, as social media continues to be the repository of manipulative and dangerous drivel, people will be more keen than ever to embrace anything they perceive as real.

If you have employees working for you, be prepared to know how to deliver something real.

Before they deliver it to you.