Jennifer,
This was a great blog to get people’s brains start thinking about power.  Growing up and seeing how avenues like television and the media portray companies, it has always appeared to me that whoever was on top and in charge, held all of the power.  Over the past few years having been involved with a number of different organizations and in different circles with people, I have found that it is not always the “Chief” or “C” that has power.  Sometimes these people just surround themselves with great people who put them in power and they are really the ones who put the ideas in that chiefs head to accomplish something.  They also may be the ones that can influence not only the chief but those that work for that company to do things.  They I believe have the true power.  To me it really depends on the rhetoric that is used.  David Zarefsky came up with 3 points that he said were the responsibilities of rhetoric and they were: It permits reasoning together about matters that are not certain but about which decisions nevertheless are required, it binds individuals into communities and publics by establishing common bonds among people, and it inspires people to work toward goals by presenting visions of what might be.  So if a person in power can use all of these things correctly and follow the responsibilities of rhetoric, then yes they do have the power.  However, it may just be people who surround that individual that has the real power.