????《財富》在1998年開始評選“最具影響力女性”（ Most Powerful Women，簡稱MPW），我參與了迄今為止的所有15個年度“最具影響力女性”名單的評選，以下就是我的感悟。

????權力由你自己打造。

????權力在《財富》最具影響力女性排行榜中的定義也發生了很大的改變。

????我的解說要從“最具影響力女性”榜單的起源開始。實際上，這份榜單源自于我在1998年夏天對地處新澤西州的朗訊公司（Lucent Technologies）進行的一次訪問。當時朗訊還是炙手可熱的電訊巨頭，我拜訪的目的是去采訪公司的兩位女性高管：一位是公司執行副總裁陸思博，她以扭轉美國電報電話公司（AT&T）的頹勢而著稱；另外一位在電訊業之外少為人知，她的名字就是卡莉?菲奧莉娜。

????年僅44歲的菲奧莉娜時任朗訊全球服務提供業務的部門總裁，她的故事讓我佩服得五體投地。她從法學院退學，從秘書起步，一直做到朗訊最大部門的主管。按照《財富》的標準，考慮到她所就職公司的規模和在全球經濟中的地位、業務的健康與方向、職業道路、社會和文化影響力，菲奧莉娜擁有的權力超過奧普拉?溫弗瑞。所以我們把奧普拉排在第二，卡莉排名第一，并使她出現在了《財富》的封面上。

????第二年夏天，她被任命為惠普（Hewlett-Packard）公司的首席執行官。這是女性一個驚人的進步，但菲奧莉娜對自己的權力感到不安。她后來曾告訴我：“我的長處確實是長處，但有時也是缺點。”彼時她在惠普的地位并不穩固，領導風格被很多人認為太過強勢，最終她在2005年被董事會解雇。當時當日，人們所能接受的女性領導者行為的尺度與現在相比更為狹隘。毫無疑問，她們會比男性同事受到更加嚴苛的審視。為了適應這樣的現實，很多女性通過運用更為溫和的權力來獲得成功。

????梅格?惠特曼（繼菲奧莉娜之后在“最具影響女性”名單中排名榜首）在擔任eBay的首席執行官時被她的高管團隊親昵地稱為“老媽”。不過后來在競選加州州長和執掌陷入困境中的惠普時，她也能應時而動地強硬起來。

????安妮?馬爾卡希挽救了處在破產邊緣的施樂公司（Xerox），她喜歡把權力定義為“影響力”。“這樣就不會有權力的感覺，而更像是共識，”她解釋道。（達到這種境界）需要有多年的領導經驗，但“我知道還是需要有人作決定。需要有人下決心... ...我還在繼續學習。”

????然后就是奧普拉。當我在2002年為撰寫《財富》封面文章：《奧普拉公司》（Oprah Inc.）對她進行采訪時，她并不喜歡“權力”這個詞，也不愿意被叫做商界女強人。（她問道：“如果我是商人，代表一個品牌，那個真正的自我在哪里？”）而8年之后，我重返芝加哥，與她討論即將開播的有線電視網絡OWN，奧普拉告訴我：“我接受我就是一個品牌的事實”，也接受了自己所擁有的“權力”。

????主宰你自己的權力。這是我在第一次遇到Facebook的首席運營官謝莉?桑德伯格時給她的建議，彼時她還是谷歌（Google）的頂級女高管。肯?奧萊塔在2011年為《紐約客》（The New Yorker）所做的的桑德伯格專題報道中記錄了這個時刻。

????“桑德伯格說自己在2005年應《財富》高級編輯帕蒂?塞勒斯的邀請，參加了該雜志主辦的‘最具影響力女性峰會’。在這個數百位商界女性參加的大會上，她突然頓悟了。當時桑德伯格雖然出席了，但還是覺得大會的名稱有點尷尬，所以沒有在與同事共享的網絡日歷上列出此次峰會。她說塞勒斯后來責備她不該那么畏畏縮縮，（還問她）‘主宰自己的權力有什么錯嗎？’”

????桑德伯格在2009年為《財富》所寫的《真正告別前請別分心》（Don't Leave Before You Leave.）一文中大聲疾呼年輕女性去主宰自己的權力。而現在，對于有職業抱負的女性，桑德伯格已經成為她們最高調的熱心支持者，呼吁她們拿出勇氣，更多地關注自己的職業發展。

????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.