权力对女性到底意味着什么

    《财富》在1998年开始评选“最具影响力女性”（ Most Powerful Women，简称MPW），我参与了迄今为止的所有15个年度“最具影响力女性”名单的评选，以下就是我的感悟。

    权力由你自己打造。

    权力在《财富》最具影响力女性排行榜中的定义也发生了很大的改变。

    我的解说要从“最具影响力女性”榜单的起源开始。实际上，这份榜单源自于我在1998年夏天对地处新泽西州的朗讯公司（Lucent Technologies）进行的一次访问。当时朗讯还是炙手可热的电讯巨头，我拜访的目的是去采访公司的两位女性高管：一位是公司执行副总裁陆思博，她以扭转美国电报电话公司（AT&T）的颓势而著称；另外一位在电讯业之外少为人知，她的名字就是卡莉•菲奥莉娜。

    年仅44岁的菲奥莉娜时任朗讯全球服务提供业务的部门总裁，她的故事让我佩服得五体投地。她从法学院退学，从秘书起步，一直做到朗讯最大部门的主管。按照《财富》的标准，考虑到她所就职公司的规模和在全球经济中的地位、业务的健康与方向、职业道路、社会和文化影响力，菲奥莉娜拥有的权力超过奥普拉•温弗瑞。所以我们把奥普拉排在第二，卡莉排名第一，并使她出现在了《财富》的封面上。

    第二年夏天，她被任命为惠普（Hewlett-Packard）公司的首席执行官。这是女性一个惊人的进步，但菲奥莉娜对自己的权力感到不安。她后来曾告诉我：“我的长处确实是长处，但有时也是缺点。”彼时她在惠普的地位并不稳固，领导风格被很多人认为太过强势，最终她在2005年被董事会解雇。当时当日，人们所能接受的女性领导者行为的尺度与现在相比更为狭隘。毫无疑问，她们会比男性同事受到更加严苛的审视。为了适应这样的现实，很多女性通过运用更为温和的权力来获得成功。

    梅格•惠特曼（继菲奥莉娜之后在“最具影响女性”名单中排名榜首）在担任eBay的首席执行官时被她的高管团队亲昵地称为“老妈”。不过后来在竞选加州州长和执掌陷入困境中的惠普时，她也能应时而动地强硬起来。

    安妮•马尔卡希挽救了处在破产边缘的施乐公司（Xerox），她喜欢把权力定义为“影响力”。“这样就不会有权力的感觉，而更像是共识，”她解释道。（达到这种境界）需要有多年的领导经验，但“我知道还是需要有人作决定。需要有人下决心... ...我还在继续学习。”

    然后就是奥普拉。当我在2002年为撰写《财富》封面文章：《奥普拉公司》（Oprah Inc.）对她进行采访时，她并不喜欢“权力”这个词，也不愿意被叫做商界女强人。（她问道：“如果我是商人，代表一个品牌，那个真正的自我在哪里？”）而8年之后，我重返芝加哥，与她讨论即将开播的有线电视网络OWN，奥普拉告诉我：“我接受我就是一个品牌的事实”，也接受了自己所拥有的“权力”。

    主宰你自己的权力。这是我在第一次遇到Facebook的首席运营官谢莉•桑德伯格时给她的建议，彼时她还是谷歌（Google）的顶级女高管。肯•奥莱塔在2011年为《纽约客》（The New Yorker）所做的的桑德伯格专题报道中记录了这个时刻。

    “桑德伯格说自己在2005年应《财富》高级编辑帕蒂•塞勒斯的邀请，参加了该杂志主办的‘最具影响力女性峰会’。在这个数百位商界女性参加的大会上，她突然顿悟了。当时桑德伯格虽然出席了，但还是觉得大会的名称有点尴尬，所以没有在与同事共享的网络日历上列出此次峰会。她说塞勒斯后来责备她不该那么畏畏缩缩，（还问她）‘主宰自己的权力有什么错吗？’”

    桑德伯格在2009年为《财富》所写的《真正告别前请别分心》（Don't Leave Before You Leave.）一文中大声疾呼年轻女性去主宰自己的权力。而现在，对于有职业抱负的女性，桑德伯格已经成为她们最高调的热心支持者，呼吁她们拿出勇气，更多地关注自己的职业发展。

    Here is what I learned from being present at the creation of FortuneMost Powerful Women in 1998 and helping to produce the annual MPW list 15 times.

    Power is what you make it.

    And Power, in the minds of the FortuneMPW, has changed greatly.

    Let me explain, by taking you back to MPW's beginnings. MPW started, actually, with a trip to New Jersey in the summer of 1998. I visited Lucent Technologies, then a red-hot telecom giant, to interview the two most senior women there. One was a well-known executive who had turned around businesses inside AT&T (T): Lucent EVP Pat Russo. The other was a woman few people outside of telecom had heard of. Her name was Carly Fiorina.

    When the 44-year-old group president of Lucent's Global Services Provider business told me her story that day, I was beyond impressed. Fiorina had dropped out of law school, started as a secretary, and risen to head Lucent's largest division. By Fortune's criteria -- the size and importance of the woman's business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the women's career, social and cultural influence -- Fiorina possessed more power than Oprah Winfrey. We named Oprah No. 2 that first year. We made Carly No. 1 and put her on Fortune's cover.

    When she scored the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) the following summer, it was a stunning advance for women, but Fiorina felt anxiety about her power. "My strength is my strength, but it also can be a weakness," she later told me, as she struggled to hold on at HP. Her leadership style came across as too aggressive to many. In 2005, the board fired her.

    The band of acceptable behavior for women leaders was, back then, even narrower than it is today. No question, aggressive women are judged more harshly than men tend to be. To deal with that reality, many women succeed by deploying a gentler brand of power.

    Meg Whitman, as CEO of eBay (EBAY) (Fiorina's successor at No. 1 on the MPW list), was nicknamed "mom" by her senior team. Later, running for governor of California and taking charge at troubled HP, she necessarily toughened.

    Anne Mulcahy, who saved Xerox (XRX) from bankruptcy, used to define power as "influence" -- "so it doesn't feel like power. It feels like consensus," she said. It took a years of being in charge, but "I've learned that a decision needs to be made. A call needs to be made...I'm still learning."

    And then there is Oprah. When I interviewed her for aFortunecover story, Oprah Inc., in 2002, she disliked the word "power" and refused to call herself a businesswoman. ("If I'm a businesswoman and a brand, where is my authentic self?" she asked.) Eight years later, when I returned to Chicago to talk with her about launching her cable TV network, OWN, she told me, "I accept that I'm a brand" -- and owned her "power."

    Own your power. That's what I told Facebook (FB) COO Sheryl Sandberg the first time I met her, when she was the top woman at Google. Ken Auletta captured the moment in his 2011 profile of Sandberg in The New Yorker:

    "Sandberg says that she had an "Aha!" moment in 2005, when Pattie Sellers, an editor at large atFortune, invited her to the magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit, an annual gathering of several hundred women. Sandberg attended, but she thought the title was embarrassing, and refused to list it on the Web-based calendar that she shared with her colleagues. She says that Sellers later chided her for being timid [and asked] 'What's wrong with owning your power?'"

    Sandberg urged young women to own their power in her 2009 essay forFortune: "Don't Leave Before You Leave." Today, she is the world's most visible cheerleader for aspiring women, challenging them to take risks and "lean in" to their careers.