FOUR COMPONENTS OF POWER

1. Usurpation. The act of seizing power, being in your opponent’s face. When two people vie for control, the one who usurps is usually the winner. In Hollywood, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
2. Leverage. Using superior position to gain advantage. Leverage is good. We like it. But no matter how much we think we have, someone else can enter with more (Steven Spielberg).
3. Information Access. Being on the inside and knowing what no one else knows. Information is currency. With information you are not a mere pawn in someone else’s machinations. Or maybe you are, but you don’t feel quite so helpless.
4. Perception. The biggest office implies the biggest deal. The best car implies the best deal. The perks are the accoutrements of power we have come to believe are the sine qua non of big-time success, but they are not really success at all. They are indicators of “visibility,” and visibility is vulnerability. What goes up must come down. So the very status that someone so arduously pursues paradoxically creates insecurity.