Law 7 of The 48 Laws of Pow­er high­lights the impor­tance of lever­ag­ing the work, knowl­edge, and tal­ents of oth­ers while ensur­ing that cred­it remains firm­ly in one’s own hands. Through­out his­to­ry, those who mas­tered the art of del­e­ga­tion and recog­ni­tion man­age­ment have reaped the ben­e­fits of inno­va­tion and progress with­out expend­ing unnec­es­sary effort. By con­trol­ling the per­cep­tion of suc­cess, indi­vid­u­als can build pow­er­ful rep­u­ta­tions while uti­liz­ing the skills of oth­ers to fur­ther their ambi­tions.

A prime exam­ple of this law in action is the rival­ry between Niko­la Tes­la and Thomas Edi­son. Tes­la, a vision­ary inven­tor, played a cru­cial role in devel­op­ing alter­nat­ing cur­rent (AC) elec­tric­i­ty, but his lack of busi­ness acu­men and fail­ure to claim cred­it left him over­shad­owed by Edi­son and lat­er West­ing­house. In con­trast, Edi­son, who did not nec­es­sar­i­ly invent all the tech­nolo­gies attrib­uted to him, excelled in mar­ket­ing and secur­ing patents under his name, ensur­ing that his­to­ry remem­bered him as a pio­neer­ing inno­va­tor while Tes­la fad­ed into obscu­ri­ty.

Anoth­er illus­tra­tion of this prin­ci­ple comes from the fable of the tor­toise, the ele­phant, and the hip­popota­mus, where the tor­toise, despite its phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions, orches­trates a tug-of-war between the two larg­er ani­mals. By clev­er­ly posi­tion­ing itself as the medi­a­tor and strate­gist, the tor­toise achieves suc­cess with­out exert­ing direct effort, prov­ing that intel­li­gence and manip­u­la­tion often tri­umph over brute strength. This para­ble mir­rors real-world pow­er dynam­ics, where those who direct efforts rather than exe­cute them per­son­al­ly often emerge as the true vic­tors.

This law also man­i­fests in the busi­ness world, where cor­po­rate lead­ers and entre­pre­neurs fre­quent­ly cap­i­tal­ize on the inge­nu­ity of their teams while tak­ing the pub­lic cred­it for break­throughs. Steve Jobs, for instance, was not the sole cre­ator of Apple’s most ground­break­ing prod­ucts but was instru­men­tal in shap­ing their vision and mar­ket­ing them as his own. His abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize, refine, and present the work of oth­ers as rev­o­lu­tion­ary advance­ments solid­i­fied his lega­cy, demon­strat­ing the immense pow­er of per­cep­tion and brand­ing.

The strat­e­gy of uti­liz­ing oth­ers’ tal­ents extends beyond busi­ness into pol­i­tics, where suc­cess­ful lead­ers often sur­round them­selves with expert advi­sors and claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for poli­cies they did not per­son­al­ly design. Fig­ures such as Franklin D. Roo­sevelt and Win­ston Churchill relied on their teams to craft mil­i­tary strate­gies and eco­nom­ic reforms but were ulti­mate­ly cred­it­ed with steer­ing their nations to vic­to­ry. This demon­strates how effec­tive del­e­ga­tion, cou­pled with pub­lic recog­ni­tion, can enhance a leader’s influ­ence and ensure his­tor­i­cal remem­brance.

While this law advo­cates for strate­gic appro­pri­a­tion, it also warns against blind­ly giv­ing away one’s work or fail­ing to assert own­er­ship. Tesla’s sto­ry serves as a cau­tion­ary tale, empha­siz­ing that bril­liance alone is insuf­fi­cient if one lacks the abil­i­ty to secure recog­ni­tion. Those who naive­ly assume that mer­it alone will grant them pow­er often find them­selves out­ma­neu­vered by those who under­stand the pol­i­tics of cred­it and rep­u­ta­tion.

Even in cre­ative indus­tries, artists and writ­ers who fail to pro­tect their intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty risk hav­ing their work repack­aged and prof­it­ed from by those with greater busi­ness savvy. The painter Peter Paul Rubens, unlike many of his con­tem­po­raries, skill­ful­ly built a work­shop of tal­ent­ed assis­tants, allow­ing him to pro­duce and claim cred­it for a vast body of work with­out exhaust­ing him­self. This approach not only ele­vat­ed his sta­tus but also secured him finan­cial suc­cess and artis­tic dom­i­nance in his era.

Ulti­mate­ly, Law 7 teach­es that pow­er is not just about effort but about vis­i­bil­i­ty and con­trol over per­cep­tion. Those who mas­ter the abil­i­ty to har­ness the strengths of oth­ers while main­tain­ing the image of per­son­al suc­cess ensure their long-term dom­i­nance. Whether in busi­ness, pol­i­tics, or cre­ative fields, the indi­vid­u­als who rise to the top are not always the most tal­ent­ed, but rather those who under­stand how to turn col­lec­tive efforts into per­son­al tri­umphs.