The most intelligent thing to do is to be once or twice removed form the face of power, by being essential and integral to such a person. Working as an indispensable behind the scenes is the best of both worlds.
Holding a strategic place of power requires its own intelligence, yet it is domination of will, tenacity for endurance, and a single mindedness toward end goals which truly make one powerful. The intelligent will seek to be modest, accommodating, and lateral. Such persons will be inevitably worn down and devoured if not by deliberate opposition, the never ending appetites of mob interests.
Intelligence is the mitigation of uncertainty.
Power is the capacity for effect.
The powerful are not the most intelligent, the powerful are those the most determinately effective. The single minded, the tenacious, the unrelenting. Those who do not know how to quit or have nothing left to loose are far more capable of power than the intelligent.