On power and empowerment: share your power while you have it, because it's going to go away.

• Author: Dilenschneider, Robert L.
• Position: ENDNOTE - Reprint

GENUINE POWER PLAYERS work for a larger cause than consolidating their own power They empower others.

Sharing your power does not mean diluting it or abdicating your responsibilities. When Kraft CEO John Richman was mentoring me to become a more productive professional and also a more diligent citizen, I observed him and said to myself, "This man is living life the way I would like to live it. He is doing the right thing." The level of humility he possessed was extraordinary. Richman did the right thing and didn't care who saw it. It was wired into him. He had compassion for people; there seemed to be a deep need in him to help the dispossessed. He helped young people at his company. He found ways to use his foundation to give back. He gave back personally in terms of money.

Richman believed that in the final analysis power is ephemeral. I frequently tell people to be very careful. This is a prize you are going to have in your hands for a very short period. Don't abuse it. Use it well and you will be successful. However, it's not going to stay with you for your life; it's going to go away.

This means that you must learn to share your power while you have it. Some people think they always will have power all the time, but they won't. It's unfortunate for them because they've got a perception of themselves that is beyond the pale. I meet CEOs who left their jobs and suddenly had no power at all. They think, "I was the CEO of Company X; I still have power," but they don't have power any longer.

When my friend Ari Fleischer was leaving his job as the White House press secretary, I said to him: "Understand that you have power now, but about 30 minutes after you leave the White House, you'll have no power. Thirty-one minutes after that you'll have even less power."

Fleischer, who was as good at his job as any of his predecessors, said: "But I was the White House press secretary."

I said: "People might see you once; people might see you twice; people will take your call because they knew who you were, but unless you can do something for them, they're not going to continue their relationship with you."

Sharing power also means sharing information that will help others understand a situation. For example, when North Korea exploded a nuclear device, I asked William Beecher, a former New York Times writer and a Pulitzer Prize winner who specialized in defense issues and now works for my company in Washington, to write an analysis of what that...