Power Is Not the Point. What You Do With It Is.

"If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."

-- Toni Morrison

Context

Morrison said this in a 2003 interview, speaking about what she believed successful people owed to the communities that produced them. The word "some" is doing quiet work in the sentence: she did not say "great" power, or "significant" power. She said some. The threshold is deliberately low. A platform, a salary, a room in a building where decisions get made, a skill that took years to develop -- these are all forms of power, and Morrison's argument is that each of them comes with the same obligation. She spent decades at Random House using her editorial position to open doors for writers who would otherwise not have been let in. Her career is itself an extended demonstration of what the quote means.

Reflection Question

What forms of power do you currently have -- access, knowledge, relationships, platform, skills, a seat at a table -- that someone behind you does not? And what have you done with that power recently that was genuinely for someone else, not for your own reputation or sense of generosity?

Application Tip

This week, identify one concrete thing you could do to use whatever power you have on behalf of someone who has less of it. Not a donation, not a like, not a vague intention to "be more supportive." Something specific: introduce two people who should know each other. Recommend someone for a project or opportunity they would not otherwise hear about. Share a skill you spent years developing. Speak up in a room where someone else's work is going unrecognized. Morrison's point is that empowerment is not a feeling or an attitude. It is an action, and it is specific. Start with one person and one concrete act this week.