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That access gives them even more money and resource control as they obtain information and opportunities to get involved with other organizations in powerful roles and meet additional important people. Or they get asked to serve on advisory committees or they become members of elite organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations or the World Economic Forum where they are privy to information and relationships that further build their power and reputation. Furthermore, the best, most talented people want to work with those with the most power and resources, so those with access to important resources have advantages in hiring precisely the sorts of smart, hard-working individuals who can further their success. It’s an old but accurate and important story: power and resources beget more power and resources. Your task is to figure out how to break into the circle.

There are two simple but important implications of resources as a source of power. The first is that in choosing among jobs, choose positions that have greater direct resource control of more budget or staff. That generally means preferring line to staff positions, since line positions typically control more staff hiring and more budgetary authority. At first glance, the examples of Zia Yusuf at SAP and the finance function at Ford Motor Company would seem to belie this advice. But finance at Ford controlled the process for allocating capital to the plants and for new product development, and it also controlled the performance evaluation process that determined people’s salaries and promotions. And the strategy group at SAP was involved in many if not most major strategic decisions at the company, which, along with the imprimatur of analytical neutrality, gave that group substantial influence over consequential organizational choices. Moreover, Yusuf moved from the strategy group to the ecosystem group and described his position to me referencing the amount of revenues it was responsible for bringing in.

Most headhunters will tell you that when they seek candidates for senior general management positions, including the CEO job, they look to people who have had responsibility running operations, and the larger the division or operation the potential candidate has run, the better, other things being equal. Job analyses such as the Hay system used to determine salary ranges consider the number of direct and indirect reports you have, as well as the amount of budget you can spend without higher-level authorization, as measures of your responsibility and consequently the economic value of your job. Getting control of resources is an important step on your path to power.

The second straightforward implication is that your power comes in large measure from the position you hold and the resources and other things you control as a consequence of holding that position. It is easy for people, motivated by self-enhancement, to believe that the deference and flattery of others is due to their inherent intelligence, experience, and charm. This may be the case, but not often. When you retire or otherwise leave a position in which you once had control over substantial amounts of resources, people will pay you much less heed and give you less attention.

I had lunch with a very senior managing partner at a venture capital firm as she was stepping down from the firm to spend more time with her family following a long and successful career in that company. She commented that once she announced her retirement, not only did her colleagues behave differently toward her, no longer inviting her to meetings and seeking her advice as often, but her time was less in demand by colleagues in the high-technology and venture capital communities more generally. Her wisdom and experience hadn’t changed—the only difference was her soon-to-be-diminished control over investment resources and positions in the venture capital firm. The loss of personal importance and power that occurs when you leave a position with substantial resource control is why, as Jeffrey Sonnenfeld documented in his book