Purpose: A Year in Review

Daniel Goleman is author of the international best-seller Emotional Intelligence and Optimal: How to Sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence Every Day. He is a regular contributor to Korn Ferry. 

Every year there is more evidence to support the claim that a focus on purpose—on the mission and meaning of work—strengthens a business from the inside, out.

In 2024, we looked at various ways purpose has proved its importance.

Here are some of the great takeaways of the past year – a look at what’s underneath the correlation between purpose, employee engagement, and organizational performance.

Why Purpose Matters

The idea that we have an intrinsic will to experience purpose isn’t just a spiritual or existential one – it’s rooted in science. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist and psychobiologist, described the brain’s seeking system, a series of neural pathways that encourage us to explore, learn, and find meaning. This seeking system releases dopamine, the “pleasure” chemical linked to motivation and reward. This is why purpose matters so much to employee engagement and retention – it makes us feel good. While purpose and meaning can happen in many different facets of our lives, according to one survey, 70% of employees say their work defines it.

How to Help People Find It

According to a recent report, 45% of employees are considering leaving their jobs within the next year due to dissatisfaction with their role. This means employers are under pressure to treat their workforce well, including guiding them into a deeper understanding of how their values align with those of their firm. Marjo Lips-Wiersma’s “map of meaning” covers some of the most significant things employees want from their places of work: values alignment, belonging, teamwork, stretch goals, development opportunities, innovation, and a focus on more than the bottom line.

Purpose and Employee Retention

According to a new report from the Great Place to Work Institute (GPTW), when it comes to employee retention, three things matter more than anything else: purpose, pride, and fun. While GPTW’s study revealed that “special and unique benefits” do correlate with an employee’s intention to stay in their role—making them 1.7 times more likely to do so—they found that the intangible elements of work had a far greater impact on retention. In jobs where employees agreed with the statement “My work is meaningful,” they were 2.7 times more likely to stay with their organization. Purpose revealed itself as the top driver of employee retention.

Purpose and Wellbeing

While the conversation around employee well-being isn’t new, most companies still haven’t figured it out. But a study of more than 25,000 young adults from 58 countries found that intrinsically meaningful values, like social connections and contributing to one’s community, had a stronger correlation with well-being than did outward-facing values, like those related to power and financial gain. The activity with the most impact: whether or not employees volunteer for charitable causes. 

Purpose and High-Performing Teams

Think of the most high-performing team you have ever known or been a part of – a top team capable of handling massive amounts of complexity while generating surprising and original solutions. According to HBR, these genius teams aren’t just characterized by their analytical skills and drive to achieve: at their core, members of these top teams are committed to and driven by a sense of purpose. The “we” mentality is what sets the stage for success. In these teams, the desire one person has to “win” or “achieve” is tempered by a consistent focus on what actually matters in the larger scheme of things.

Purpose and The Planet

 Last summer, the planet experienced its warmest day ever. Millions of lives and jobs continue to be impacted, and how leaders respond will be one of the crucial factors in what comes next. “The ability to shift from reacting against the past to leaning into and presencing an emerging future is probably the single most important leadership capacity today,” says Otto Scharmer, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. This maps to what Korn Ferry calls “visionary” leadership—where the leader articulates a shared mission from the heart to the heart and creates the most positive climate for people to do their best. Being purpose-driven requires an acceptance of what is, combined with a strong eye on what might be possible— a vision for the meaningful change a company can create.

One thing is for sure: purpose pays off. For people, for the planet and for the profit margin. Purpose-driven companies are three times as likely to retain talent and see up to a 30% increase in innovation. In the end, this leads to what most leaders want: a strengthening of the bottom line. In some cases, purpose-driven organizations experience an annual average return of 9-13% higher than the S&P 500 index. 

Co-written by Elizabeth Solomon

Click here to learn more about Daniel Goleman's Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence.