The research on
Leadership development is full of claims and short on proof. This page presents three kinds of evidence: an independent randomized controlled trial, a large-scale internal evaluation, and the broader research on purpose at work. Each is labeled for what it can and can’t prove.
THREE KINDS OF EVIDENCE
Not all proof is the same. Here’s how to read each source.
TIER 1 · INDEPENDENT TRIAL
The LSE / Chicago Booth randomized controlled trial
A two-year RCT of 2,976 employees, independently designed and run by academic economists. CLI did not commission it.
Proves: cause and effect
Can’t: speak to senior executives directly
TIER 2 · INTERNAL EVALUATION
ING Bank’s Purpose to Impact® rollout
9,000+ employees reached, 45,000 surveyed at the close of a multi-year deployment inside one organization.
Proves: what happened at scale
Can’t: claim independent peer review
TIER 3 · THE CONTEXT
The wider research on purpose at work
HBR, Gallup and McKinsey on the scale of the problem — and what changes when individual purpose is restored.
Proves: the pattern is widespread
Can’t: isolate cause on its own
TIER 1 · INDEPENDENT TRIAL
An independent randomized controlled trial
In 2025, economists from the London School of Economics and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business published the results of a randomized controlled trial on individual purpose discovery. The goal of this research was to understand the organizational impacts of workers engaging directly in meaning-making and envisioning their own sense of purpose. The program they studied was called “Discover Your Purpose,” and the Harvard Business Review article “From Purpose to Impact” (2014) by Nick Craig and Scott Snook, which detailed CLI’s methodology, was cited as required program pre-work. CLI did not commission this research.
Design — Randomized controlled trial · May 2025 · NBER Working Paper 33843
Study scope — 2,976 white-collar employees · 14 countries · two years
CLI did not commission this research. It is an independent academic study. Its credibility rests on the design, the institutions, and peer review.
72%
Internal Rate of Return
The financial return on the program, calculated by the study authors using actual costs over two years. The program in this study was delivered by internal facilitators.
6.7pp
More Employees Earning a Bonus
The share of program completers earning any performance bonus rose by 6.7 percentage points compared to the control group. Mean bonus earnings also increased: by 17.3% of one standard deviation of bonus pay among participants.
5.3pp
Fewer Underperformers
The share of employees performing below standard fell by 5.3 percentage points: half from low performers improving, and half from employees who found greater meaning elsewhere.
The study also found that the annual exit rate was higher among the treatment group, driven by low performers who left for roles better aligned with their purpose. This accounts for half of the reduction in underperformers. The other half reflects improved performance among those who stayed.
WHAT THIS STUDY CAN AND CAN’T TELL YOU
The study examined entry-level white-collar employees at a large consumer goods multinational across 14 countries. It was not conducted on C-suite or senior executives. The mechanism identified — purpose reduces the perceived cost of effort — operates at the level of individual meaning and does not change by seniority.
WHAT THIS STUDY FOUND
Five findings worth understanding
Open each to read the detail.
Ashraf, Bandiera, Minni, and Zingales. “Meaning at Work.” NBER Working Paper No. 33843, May 2025. London School of Economics and University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
TIER 2 · INTERNAL EVALUATION
ING Bank: a large-scale internal program evaluation
The findings below come from ING Bank’s own internal evaluation, conducted at the conclusion of its multi-year Purpose to Impact® rollout. They are not a peer-reviewed study.
“Articulating my own purpose has not been a process of invention, but a process of discovery. Having discovered my own purpose has really enhanced my impact as a leader.”
— Ralph Hamers · former CEO, ING Group
50%
higher work pleasure
35%
lower burnout
22%
higher performance
42%
higher energy at work
ING Bank deployed Purpose to Impact® in waves between 2016 and 2023, reaching over 9,000 employees through an internally trained facilitator network. At the conclusion of the rollout, ING surveyed 45,000 employees, comparing those with a clear personal purpose to those without. The figures above reflect what the purpose-clear group reported.
The program earned a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 62 (NPS above 50 is classified as ‘excellent’ by Bain & Company, the framework’s originator). 95% of participants said the time away from their job was worthwhile. 96% said it increased their self-awareness.
“It has become very clear that purpose is among the strongest drivers of performance and engagement. Nick has cracked the code of purpose.”
— Hein Knaapen · former CHRO, ING Bank
ING Bank internal program evaluation, 2023. Work pleasure, burnout, performance, and energy were measured using ING’s internal employee survey instruments. This evaluation was not independently verified or peer-reviewed.
TIER 3 · THE CONTEXT
The imperative for operationalizing purpose in organizations
In their 2014 Harvard Business Review article, Nick Craig and Scott Snook reported that in their direct work training thousands of managers at organizations from GE to the Girl Scouts, and teaching an equal number of executives and students at Harvard Business School, fewer than 20% of leaders had a strong sense of their own individual purpose (a practitioner observation from their own program work, not a separately commissioned study.)
Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace measures the consequence at scale. Global employee engagement stands at 20%. Manager engagement has dropped nine points since 2022, falling to 22%. Best-practice organizations reach 79% manager engagement — a gap that shows the problem is not inevitable. Gallup also finds senior leaders report loneliness at rates ten points higher than individual contributors. Gallup estimates the engagement gap costs the global economy approximately $10 trillion in lost productivity annually.
<20%
of leaders had a strong sense of their own purpose
20%
global employee engagement (Gallup, 2026)
$10T
estimated annual cost of the engagement gap
McKinsey research published in 2020 examined what happened when the gap between organizational purpose and individual purpose alignment was closed. In a survey of 855 employees across US-based companies, conducted in October 2019, McKinsey found that companies where two conditions are simultaneously present — organizational purpose is reflected in leadership decisions, and employees feel personally aligned with that purpose — showed nearly a fourfold improvement in employee engagement and a twofold increase in retention. The gap is common: 44% of employees surveyed said their company’s purpose wasn’t aligned with their own sense of individual purpose.
A practitioner’s direct experience, a global workforce survey, and a comparative survey of aligned versus misaligned organizations — three different vantage points pointing to the same pattern. Where individual purpose is missing, the pattern is visible firsthand. Where it’s missing at scale, engagement falls and the cost compounds. Where it’s restored, engagement and retention move sharply in the other direction.
~4×
improvement in employee engagement when aligned
2×
increase in retention when aligned
44%
say company purpose isn’t aligned with their own
Craig and Snook, “From Purpose to Impact,” Harvard Business Review, May 2014. Gast, Probst, and Simpson, “Purpose, not platitudes,” McKinsey Quarterly, December 2020. Gallup, State of the Global Workplace, 2026.