Powerful people are ideologically driven. Rather than let the world define them, these individuals manifest their interests into the world. They stand for something in the face of adversity. Their ability to take a stand is what provides the backbone to their boundaries and attracts others to them.

But how does self-direction show up in powerful people?

Imagine you created a new pasta, never before seen or tasted by humankind. You’re about to become a living legend with your product. But before it goes to market, it needs a name. Something creative. There is a pantheon of pastas out there with names like lasagna, ravioli, rigatoni, linguini and spaghetti.

What name do you choose for your new noodle? Come up with a name right now and say it aloud. Make this exercise real. Got a name? Good.

High power breeds creativity

Adam Galinsky and his colleagues ran a similar experiment asking students to come up with names for new products like pasta and painkillers. Before asking students to name these products, Galinsky primed half the students to feel high power.

The other half were left unprimed to act as normal. After students named the products, Galinsky assessed how creative the names were.

What signified creativity? In this case, creativity meant choosing a pasta name that did not end in a familiar sound like na, li, ni, or ti. It had to be completely different from the examples listed.

High-power people were significantly more creative in their product naming than the average person. Similar experiments asked powerful people to come up with new menu items at restaurants or imagine what aliens look like. And in each case, personal power fostered the most creative examples.

Creativity is associated with big-picture thinking. But perhaps more importantly, creativity is associated with independence over conformity. Powerful people tuned out external stimuli in order to listen to what arose from within. They anchored internally.

Behavioral confirmation

When someone takes an action, be it a friend or a foe, they influence those around them. Love is met with love. Anger is met with anger. We see this at the conscious level, but the same process is happening unconsciously as well.

For example, if someone believes you are a loving person, they will unconsciously act in ways that cause you to automatically respond more lovingly. Or if someone believes you are incompetent, they will treat you in ways that influence you to act more incompetently. And it’s all happening beneath our awareness.

Psychologists call this behavioral confirmation, where one person’s expectation of others causes others to respond in ways that confirm the expectation.

Research at the University of Kentucky showed exactly that – when two people worked on a task together, the negative expectations of the more powerful person influenced their partner to act more consistent with those expectations, even when the other person knew nothing about those expectations.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy driven by the person with more power. And the more power someone has in a situation, the more likely their expectations will influence the behavior of those around them. Personal power is the key to the whole automatic role-play.

Finding an anchor

Instinctively, we may anchor externally for security. Many of us chase social achievements in order to be admired – whether it’s a great job, money or a social media following. The lure of these goals is almost intoxicating, because it speaks to our need for acceptance. But when our goal is admiration, we’ve turned our attention outward, seeking approval. We’re following the siren call of other people’s evaluations.

The grandfather of the self-esteem movement, Nathaniel Branden, shared the following words on seeking approval: “Within you is a void that should have been filled by self-esteem. When you attempt to fill it with the approval of others instead, the void grows deeper and the hunger for acceptance and approval grows stronger.”

No amount of external admiration can bring about a robust experience of personal power. Even in the victory of approval there is defeat.

The first destructive consequence of looking outward is that we lose inward focus. Without a clear inner anchor, next we lose our boundaries. We may turn to distractions and reactions. Soon we find ourselves drifting endlessly toward whatever is handed to us in the hopes that something we are given will bring us enduring joy. Nothing ever does.

Personal power is not about being productive, wealthy or exercising every day. Power is about where we put our anchor.

Trust yourself

One of the strongest qualities of personal power is that power makes us trust ourselves more. We look inward for our north star to guide us. As we tune into our feelings and beliefs, we tune out the involuntary influence of others.

This might be as simple as pausing to take a breath before making a decision. The result is that power makes us less influenced by persuasion and more judicious of the advice we receive. While we may go wrong occasionally, personal power is not about being wrong or right, it’s about anchoring internally.

After failure, the powerful are more likely to reflect on their actions and learn from them. Learning continues to build self-trust, whereas the powerless, having surrendered their thinking to the outside world, more often blame their failure on others.

In this way, powerlessness never builds self-trust because there is no acknowledgment of personal responsibility.

Opinions expressed by The CEO Magazine contributors are their own.