Achieving Professional Success: How It Uses the Inner Work
Everyone wants to be successful in their lives, and it is possible if people take the opportunity to work on themselves to improve their chances of success. Building on the proper inner competencies can help people adjust the way they think, respond, and learn from experiences.
Consider someone who is asked to be in charge of a project they have never handled before. Someone who doubts their abilities and is hesitant to go through with the experience might not accept the new responsibility. But another person who has grit and a growth mindset will see this challenge as an opportunity to gain new experiences and will find resolutions to obstacles that might appear along the way. This person also probably has the self-efficacy to believe in their own ability to succeed at the task and adjust their thinking and response to come to a resolution if challenges arise. These are the kinds of inner competencies that help people gain success from educational attainment to promotions.
There can be huge consequences for businesses from avoiding working on people’s personal skills. Poor leadership is the reason many U.S. companies lose $550 billion in lost productivity while also losing $1 trillion from voluntary turnover yearly. 47% of employees who quit their job in 2025 said “Loved my job, but can’t stand my manager” and 90% said “Boss influenced my decision to leave.” 45% said “Stayed because of a ‘good’ relationship with manager.”
Only 19% of organizations in the U.S. believe their leaders are efficient at developing others. This could possibly be explained by 58% of managers never going through formal leadership training. Companies that do invest in training, however, have seen great signs, such as 69% better collaboration and teamwork, 60% increase in employee engagement, and 59% greater emotional intelligence.
People who lead from their own unique set of skills, experiences, and insights have been able to keep employees longer in different industries. Highly engaged teams generally see 21% less turnover in high turnover industries and 51% less turnover in low turnover industries. Emotional intelligence is especially useful as it helps leaders improve behaviors, business results, and team performance as well as attitudes. Employees feel more engaged at work, leading to 70% greater wellbeing, 63% less safety incidents, and 18% higher sales results.
For businesses, there is a 95% correlation between decision-making and financial benefits. Companies that try to make a profit while benefiting everyone involved have outperformed even the S&P 500 index by a factor of around 10. Decisive leadership corresponds to about four times greater health for organizations, which allows these organizations to deliver three times more shareholder returns compared to organizations who are not as healthy.
Between 2019 and 2022, 76% of for-profit businesses reported an increase in revenue while 60% of nonprofit businesses have seen revenue growth. This outperformance shows that being mission-driven is usually more profitable for businesses. Using inner work, leaders can understand their organizations in a way that positions them to know the priorities of the company and make better business decisions that satisfy sustained growth.
Source: Sounds True