"Passion and standing up for things can help create a sense of unity. But you still have to act a certain way"
About this Quote
Unity is a crowd-pleaser, but Blank’s real subject here is control. The line opens by praising “passion” and “standing up for things,” the kind of language that flatters employees, fans, and communities by casting them as principled participants in a shared mission. Then comes the pivot: “But you still have to act a certain way.” That “but” is the tell. It turns empowerment into a conditional license, a reminder that collective energy is welcome only when it stays legible, orderly, and safe for the institution.
As a businessman (and, in Blank’s public life, a sports owner and civic-minded brand builder), he’s speaking from the managerial center of gravity: how to harness moral intensity without letting it become reputational risk. The phrase “a certain way” is intentionally vague, which is part of its power. It allows the authority figure to set boundaries without naming them, to reserve the right to decide after the fact which expressions of passion count as “unity” and which are “disruptive.”
The subtext is a familiar corporate-social bargain: bring your whole self, but not the parts that threaten hierarchy. Protest is praised as long as it reads like team spirit; dissent is tolerated as long as it doesn’t scramble the optics. Blank’s intent isn’t cynical so much as pragmatic: he’s articulating the brand-era tightrope where institutions want the credibility of conviction and the predictability of compliance. Unity, in this framing, isn’t a spontaneous bond; it’s a curated outcome.
As a businessman (and, in Blank’s public life, a sports owner and civic-minded brand builder), he’s speaking from the managerial center of gravity: how to harness moral intensity without letting it become reputational risk. The phrase “a certain way” is intentionally vague, which is part of its power. It allows the authority figure to set boundaries without naming them, to reserve the right to decide after the fact which expressions of passion count as “unity” and which are “disruptive.”
The subtext is a familiar corporate-social bargain: bring your whole self, but not the parts that threaten hierarchy. Protest is praised as long as it reads like team spirit; dissent is tolerated as long as it doesn’t scramble the optics. Blank’s intent isn’t cynical so much as pragmatic: he’s articulating the brand-era tightrope where institutions want the credibility of conviction and the predictability of compliance. Unity, in this framing, isn’t a spontaneous bond; it’s a curated outcome.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
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