Why so many jobs feel empty—and how leaders can restore meaning and individuals can reconnect with purpose from within.
KEY POINTS
- Seventy percent of people feel disengaged at work—because purpose is often missing.
- Disengagement costs companies $9 trillion a year.
- Only two in 10 workers feel inspired—work shouldn’t just fill time, it should fulfill people.
- The best leaders know there’s a difference between managing tasks and leading people.
Let’s be honest: we all have those days when nothing seems to make sense. You wake up, grab your coffee, sit down at your desk, and think, ”What’s the point?”
Sometimes, it’s life in general that gets us down. But more often, it’s work.
I have spent decades helping organizations large and small change their cultures. And in that time I’ve seen the same pattern again and again. When leaders try to run their companies like machines, the living, breathing, messy humans they rely on switch off.
This problem has only gotten worse as we’ve moved into the digital age. New technologies help us track everything. Businesses worship at the altar of the KPI (key performance indicators), the executive dashboard, the quarterly performance report. But as we focus laser-like on optimization, something important often falls by the wayside: We forget to ask what it all means.
The Problem Beneath the Surface
The data is sobering. Only three in 10 U.S. employees feel engaged at work. Globally, that number drops to just two in 10. That means most people are intellectually and emotionally disconnected from the tasks they spend most of their day on.
The economic costs are enormous. According to Gallup’s global workplace report, disengagement costs companies around the world nearly $9 trillionannually in lost productivity. That’s the equivalent of nearly 10% of global GDP.
But this isn’t just about the bottom line. It’s a human tragedy as well. Every disengaged employee, every worker who drags themselves to their desk asking “What’s the point?” represents the destruction of human potential. Meaning matters, and when we can’t find it in our work, we limp through the day, adrift and disconnected.
When Work Loses Its Soul
Disconnection doesn’t always look like an existential crisis. We’ve all worked with colleagues who are competent but detached. Most of us have been that person ourselves at one time or another.
Where you used to arrive at meetings full of ideas and eager to share, now you just nod along in the hope that agreement will make the process as painless as possible. Work becomes about showing up and checking the boxes. Making a difference ceases to matter.
Such attitudes don’t disappear at the meeting room door. They seep into culture, relationships, and well-being. A purpose-starved workplace doesn’t just lose output—it loses its soul.
What Happens When People Actually Care
Now here’s the good news: when people find meaning in their work, everything shifts.
Research from McKinsey shows that when work is personally fulfilling, work and life outcomes can be as much as five times higher than for those who are unfulfilled. Health improves, people are more resilient, and staff retention goes up.
Purpose becomes a force multiplier for both the individual and the business. I’ve seen it time and again: When someone reconnects with why they do what they do, they can move mountains. Purpose fuels things that performance metrics never can: pride, resilience, emotional commitment, innovation. And it’s contagious. When a business builds its operations around a mission that matters, the sense of doing something important spreads fast.
Making Work Human
So how do we fix this? Not with the pizza parties that have become millennial memes and not by hanging some inspirational posters in the break room.
It starts with remembering that behind every job title, every employee ID number, every Zoom square, there’s a real person who wants their day to mean something.
Share the real stories. Stop talking in numbers. Tell people about the customer who sent a thank-you note. Share how your product helped someone’s small business survive. Make the impact visible and personal.
Actually live your values. If your company says it values work-life balance, don’t send emails at 11 PM. If innovation is important, give people space to experiment without fearing failure. People watch what you do, so lead by example.
Give feedback that matters. Instead of just saying “good work,” help people see how their effort rippled outward. Show them the connection between their task and the bigger picture. Make feedback about future impact, not just past performance.
Create space to breathe. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is ask someone, “How are you doing, really?” and then actually listen to the answer. Check in as humans, not just as job functions.
Help people grow as people. Don’t just develop their skills—help them discover what they’re capable of becoming. That’s where real loyalty and creativity come from.
The Heart of Great Leadership
The leaders I respect most share two things: empathy and genuine care for people.
Empathy means actually paying attention to what people are going through—not just at work, but as whole human beings with families, dreams, and challenges. It’s the difference between managing tasks and leading people.
Genuine care means you don’t just understand what someone’s dealing with—you actually do something about it. You remember that businesses exist to make people’s lives better, not just to make money.
These leaders wake up asking themselves: “Who will we serve today?” Their purpose isn’t something they put on their LinkedIn profile. It’s how they live and work every single day.
A Simple Framework: LIFTS
Over the years, I’ve developed a straightforward approach to building workplaces where people actually want to be. I call it LIFTS:
Learn—Start with yourself. What gets you up in the morning? What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
Investigate—Ask the real questions. How are people actually feeling? What’s working in your organization, and what’s driving people crazy?
Formulate—Create a vision that people can believe in. Something real, not just corporate slogans.
Take action—Make decisions that show you care about people, not just profit margins.
Study what happens—Pay attention to what inspires growth. Be willing to change course when something isn’t working.
This isn’t just a business framework. It’s a way of thinking about leadership as service—using your position to protect and nurture the energy, attention, and hope of the people who trust you to lead them.
The Real Bottom Line
Work should be more than just something you do to pay the bills. It should be a place where you get to become who you’re meant to be.
When we lead with purpose, we’re not just managing projects and hitting deadlines. We’re helping people discover what they’re capable of. That’s what makes the difference between a job and a calling. We all want to believe that showing up matters. And it’s the job of an organization’s leaders to light the way.
In a world that often feels meaningless, helping people find the meaning in their day might be the most important work any of us can do.
[Photo: Cristina Conti/Shutterstock]
Original article @ Psychology Today.
