In my latest  BusinessWeek.com column I focus on the need for and power of authenticity in branding. I began the column with the story of Citi, which has been about as inauthentic a brand as there could be over the past couple of years. New CEO Vikram Pandit is claiming to have turned things around, and I hope he has. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, it’s much easier to find examples of brands that are falling down on the authenticity job than those which consistently succeed. That’s why a recent experience I had with Southwest Airlines was so intriguing to me.

A few weeks ago a group of MWC staffers and I were at the Southwest ticket counter checking our bags, and we ran into a particularly nasty agent. She seemed angry at us for simply being there, and scolded us as she rushed us for no apparent reason. There were no long lines, we weren’t late for our flight—we simply offended her by showing up. Or maybe she was just having a bad day.

As we joked about it on the way through security, I noticed how I was interpreting the event differently than I would have if she had worked for, say, American or Delta. In that case it would have been easy to count the bad experience as one more example of how legacy airlines don’t give a rip about their customers. I know I’m overstating it a bit, but  I have come to expect poor treatment from those brands (hey, at least they’re consistent).

In this case, however, I not only gave Southwest a pass, I actually felt sorry for the brand. One of their own was behaving in a way that hurt it, and I didn’t want that to happen. Southwest has been so consistently authentic over the years that the space the brand occupies in my brain simply rejected this one example of rude behavior.

Southwest, like every brand, isn’t perfect. But it is authentic. And that authenticity has built up such equity over time that one bad experience did no damage—in fact, it may have in an odd way enhanced the brand by making me consider why I reacted the way I did. If it happens again soon I may start to reconsider, but for me this experience served as an exception that proved the rule. Kudos to Southwest.

My next BusinessWeek.com column takes on the topic of authenticity in branding. In it I describe how the Citi brand is suffering from (among other things) an authenticity crisis.

Companies that didn’t make the cut in the column include Nike, Southwest Airlines and Chipotle, among others, and I will be commenting on their brand authenticity (or lack thereof) in upcoming posts, some of which may surprise you.

I’d like to invite your suggestions on other brands that may be particularly authentic—or authenticity-challenged. Feel free to comment below or drop me an email at Steve.McKee@WhenGrowthStalls.com with your thoughts on which, and why. If I use your idea I’ll be happy to give you a plug. And look for my column this week.

One of the cool (or creepy, depending on your perspective) aspects of the Kindle e-reader is its “Popular Highlights” feature. It lets you see what other people who have read what you’re reading thought was interesting enough to underscore.

Below I’ve listed a handful of popular highlights of When Growth Stalls. I think they offer a window of insight into readers’ thinking as our economy continues to languish. And taken together they offer a nice (if incomplete) overview of the book:

I learned two valuable lessons: number one, insane market momentum can’t go on forever; and number two, even in the best-run companies, growth stalls.

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To ride out a downturn, it’s important for every company to “store nuts.”

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The most important thing to remember when hard times hit is to keep your wits about you. Protect your assets, play for the long term, and make sure your people know you have a plan.

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Trying to get everybody to agree on everything is not leadership, it’s a form of passivity. And it is impossible to boot. What consensus does mean, in this context, is agreement among an organization’s senior leadership about the nature and purpose of the company and where it’s intended to go.

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“Results are obtained only by concentration of resources, especially by concentration of the scarcest and most valuable resource, people with proven performance capacity.” (Peter Drucker quote)

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Whether your target is a CEO in the boardroom determining the fate of a multibillion-dollar contract, or a parent in the supermarket deciding between two boxes of cereal, your task is to understand your audience, determine what they’re looking for, and align your product or service with their wants and needs.

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As the “U.S. Army Leadership” manual knowingly states, “No plan survives initial contact with the enemy.”

If you haven’t picked up a copy of When Growth Stalls yet, I encourage you to do so. It’s available at most bookstores as well as on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online. As the highlights above (and recent reviews) indicate, its advice is as relevant as ever.