The seven rules are: 1.Get out of your own way. 2.Break the rules. 3.Appear powerful. 4.Build a powerful brand. 5.Network relentlessly. 6.Use your power. 7.Success excuses almost everything you may have done to acquire power. (Location 161)
Among the books sitting on my desk are one titled How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize;16 Cheaters Always Win: The Story of America;17 and Cheating,18 by my late Stanford law school colleague Deborah Rhode. All of them are worth reading for their deep understanding of the realities of history and human behavior. (Location 265)
Power is seldom the most important source of success, but what it can do, as it did for Rukaiyah Adams, is help leverage your performance and talent. Job performance is important, but if no one notices that performance, it is for naught. Power and performance together will get you much further ahead than either one separately. (Location 313)
said, “If the ends don’t justify the means, what does?” (Location 373)
Deciding what means to employ in pursuing one’s goals is a personal choice. But to make that choice, I believe you need to understand as much as possible about what works, and what doesn’t, and why. And you also need to understand that some of your rivals may not have the same reluctance to go “all in” and to play the game to win. (Location 378)
How people think of themselves invariably influences what they project to others and what behaviors they will enact. The lesson: use self-descriptive adjectives that convey power, and eschew attitudes that, even if accurate, fairly or unfairly, diminish your status. (Location 584)
One way of getting over imposter syndrome is to focus on others in high-level positions and their differences from you, if any. Many of them are no more qualified than you are; success is sometimes the result of luck or being born to the right parents. Another way to move past imposter syndrome is to do what this woman and other people sometimes do: push or force themselves, even in situations where they are uncomfortable, to present and sell themselves. With experience comes more comfort as well as skill. Getting over imposter syndrome is a first step on a person’s path to power. (Location 608)
Colleagues expect that you will, at least to some extent, self-advocate and self-promote—and if you don’t, that behavior will be held against you. (Location 615)
So, if you do not project power and confidence, and your self-description is limited in its ambitions and claims, your social status and career will suffer. (Location 618)
Self-awareness of where you sit in the ecosystem and what you need to do to win is something everyone would do well to develop. (Location 668)
The fundamental point: everyone has choices, not only about how they think of themselves, but about what they are willing or unwilling to do in the contest for power. You can opt in, or out. You can self-handicap, or, like Christina Troitino, “play the game very differently.” (Location 697)
If you want power, you need to toughen up and become able to persist in the face of opposition and persevere even when confronted by setbacks. Persistence and resilience seem to require not overly obsessing about what others think and say while possessing enough ego strength to keep problems and criticism from throwing you off course. Like other personal qualities that help make people powerful,16 persistence and resilience can be developed, particularly with practice, experience, and social support. (Location 728)
engaging in activities such as networking, flattering those in power, spending time ensuring that others know of their accomplishments, asking for resources, or presenting themselves to the world in a powerful fashion (Location 831)
London Business School professor Herminia Ibarra has written a Harvard Business Review article on what she called the authenticity paradox. (Location 865)
Don’t let the notion that doing something new or different—particularly if that new behavior is going to be helpful in your path to power—is inauthentic become an excuse for thinking in ways that hold you back. (Location 876)
Leaders need allies and supporters; one of the primary tasks of a leader is to recruit both. This task is more readily accomplished if the leader is true not to themselves but instead to the needs and motivations of those they seek to recruit. (Location 901)
If you want others to support you, you need to be able to answer the question: What’s in it for them if they do? (Location 910)
Note: This is critical for every professional and inter personal relationships
What is true in politics is true in organizations of all types. The people with whom you work have agendas, insecurities, problems, needs. So stop focusing on trying to figure out who you are. Instead, focus on who your allies and potential allies are. Become a student of the people whose support you need. The sooner you do, the faster you will develop the information and insights necessary for strategically building the alliances you need to succeed. (Location 915)
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Social psychologist Robert Cialdini’s advice in a conversation with me is to first demonstrate competence. Then, if and when you show warmth, people will not see it as a sign of weakness but as something unexpected from a person with power. (Location 935)
Ricky Nelson: “Ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.” (Location 978)
The first rule of power is about acknowledging and accepting who you are but not letting that identity define who you will be forever. It is about understanding the importance of social connection but not letting the need for acceptance overwhelm what you want to get done, and the necessity of pursuing your own interests and agenda. It is, in short, about getting out of your own way and getting on with the task of building the power base that will provide you the leverage to accomplish your goals. (Location 980)
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Rule breaking and violating social norms to build power fundamentally entail undertaking behaviors—taking initiatives—that are “different” and unexpected. Most importantly, rule breaking requires being proactive and doing something— (Location 1032)
It Is Easier—and More Effective—to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission (Location 1111)
But people want to offer help. First of all, it is consistent with social expectations to be cooperative. Also, asking for help is flattering. In asking for the advice or assistance of another, the requestor implicitly elevates the status of the target, who is in the position of bestowing a favor, earning gratitude, and most importantly, demonstrating their importance to the requestor by complying with the request. (Location 1213)
Change invariably requires the reallocation of resources, and those from whom resources are moving are not going to be happy about that prospect. (Location 1274)
Although people cannot radically change their physiognomy, they can do things to increase their physical attractiveness and the appearance of height, in part by paying attention to grooming, colors, and wardrobe choices that play to one’s strengths and accentuate the positive aspects of appearance. (Location 1409)
When someone projects confidence, others are more likely to follow and support them—and for that matter, to hire and promote them. Moreover, if a leader projects confidence, then, following the ideas of contagion, others are likely to feel more confident and act accordingly. (Location 1503)
So, yes, you can express vulnerabilities and insecurities among friends, or when you hold a position in which you are not a leader. But in high-status and task-relevant positions, you are much better off keeping any insecurities to yourself. People want to be aligned with someone who they think is going to win, to prevail, so doing anything that disabuses them of that belief is probably a mistake. (Location 1536)
TABLE 3-1 NONVERBAL BEHAVIORS ACTUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH POWER, STATUS, AND DOMINANCE More gestures More open body posture Less interpersonal distance (placing oneself closer to others) More controlled arm and hand gestures Louder voice More successful interruptions of others More speaking time Longer gazing time Higher visual dominance ratio (look + talk > look + listen) More disinhibited laughs (Location 1551)
Evidence shows that “people are more likely to judge repeated statements as true compared to new statements, a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect.” (Location 1585)
The implication: master how to appear confident, attractive, and powerful in multiple ways. Because of the operation of confirmation bias and the power of first impressions, appearance (i.e., impressions created through speech and how one presents oneself) matters a great deal. (Location 1604)
Everyone needs a brand. Your task: think of a short (two-or three-sentence) way of describing yourself and your accomplishments that brings together your expertise, your experience (what you have done), and a way of integrating that with some aspect of your personal story. (Location 1684)
If you have a job at a prestigious organization, go beyond just adding it to your résumé and public profile. Leverage that association to obtain connections to other high-status positions and organizations and build even more personal brand equity. (Location 1879)
Your bosses and colleagues are busy and often focused on their own objectives. Don’t expect them to necessarily notice or credit your accomplishments. (Location 1884)
It was about telling the story over and over. Not only did everyone know about this product, but then people started spreading the word for us. (Location 1906)
People wanted to be part of something that was going to address an acute need. They heard the story and wanted to be part of writing it. (Location 1908)
Saint Joseph College professor Richard Halstead observes that “the story of the hero’s journey has been told and retold . . . for centuries.”20 It captures the “strength and perseverance of the human spirit,” speaking to the challenges people face and the possibility of personal transformation and triumph. The story’s structure is often the same: a person faces an unexpected setback, which becomes an opportunity for learning and personal transformation. Having learned an important lesson, the individual reengages in a way that produces success, thereby validating the learning and development they have experienced. (Location 1915)
To build a lasting brand, you also must craft the narrative in a way consistent with the hero’s journey, so that people are more likely to remember it and, more importantly, embrace its inspirational message. (Location 1921)
that performance was often not that important and social relationships and sponsorship mattered more— (Location 1965)
After all, if no one knows or notices someone, their good work will not help them much because it will be invisible. (Location 1967)
The old saying “it’s not what you know but who you know” has at least some truth. Who you know, and how many people you know, matters for your influence and for your career. (Location 2001)
people should spend eight to ten hours a week building professional relationships because “the secret to getting more business through networking is . . . spending more time doing it!”6 (Location 2015)
Social relationships are critical for career success and developing the capacity to get things done. (Location 2068)
The practical implication: network structure matters. People’s careers—and their job performance—are enhanced if they can find positions or jobs where they can perform brokerage and bridge structural holes—connecting units, people, or organizations that would mutually benefit from being exposed to different ideas, information, opportunities, and resources. (Location 2166)
Centrality affects visibility. More people will know and know about people who are more central, and that visibility will often work to those people’s advantage for becoming the focal point for information and opportunities. (Location 2196)
putting yourself in the other’s place, having some empathetic understanding of where they are coming from and what challenges they face, so that you can provide help reasonably easily and effectively. (Location 2203)
Balancing network growth with network value extraction, and spending more time on people being cultivated than those who are already part of one’s social circle, are two other ways—along with leveraging technology and maybe building a staff (after all, hiring help is often not that expensive)—to become more time efficient in networking. (Location 2241)
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Are you devoting enough time to building social relationships and engaging in social interactions? And with whom are you spending your time? Are you building brokerage relationships—connecting people or organizations who could benefit from such connections? Are you associating often enough with high-status others? Are you spending your time in professionally useful ways, at least on occasion? (Location 2246)
Making positive change by using power encourages people to come over to your side and enhances your performance before people can do anything to sabotage your efforts. (Location 2324)