We know the UN’s 17 global goals – but what about inner development goals?
- BEING: Relating to oneself.
- THINKING: Cognitive skills.
- RELATING: Caring for others and the world.
- COLLABORATING: Social skills.
- ACTING: Driving change.
These are the headlines for 23 Inner Development Goals (IDGs), developed by a group of Swedish researchers and consultants affiliated with Stockholm University, the Stockholm School of Economics, Lund University, and the Karolinska Institute. The aim of the IDGs is to accelerate progress on sustainability by emphasizing its inner dimensions.
How the 23 inner development goals came to be
The initiative began with the realization that the UN’s 17 Global Goals have enabled organizations to work concretely and purposefully with the external dimensions of sustainability.
However, the project team saw a missing piece, a framework to support similar progress on the inner level. Drawing on academic theory and a large international survey, they identified 23 inner goals that complement the Global Goals and make it possible to work tangibly with the inner side of sustainability.
Inner sustainability as a prerequisite
Strengthening inner sustainability is essential. We’ve pushed the planet to its limits and misused its resources. In many ways, the same has happened within our organizations except here, we’ve exhausted human resources. That’s why we need to rethink the way we lead and operate.
The paradigm of Regenerative Leadership argues that if we want a more sustainable society, we must also act more sustainably within our organizations and leadership practices, while being mindful of how we use nature’s resources.
Change doesn’t happen on its own
The Global Goals represent the most ambitious plan for our planet’s development ever. All countries have committed to eradicating poverty, reducing inequality, and tackling climate change by 2030. But change doesn’t happen by itself. We must accelerate the sustainability agenda by incorporating the inner dimensions.
All the transformative decisions that must be made within organizations don’t just happen—they come from people. So the pressing question becomes: What does it take for people to change their actions?
The careful answer: Something must change on the inside. That’s where transformation begins. If we want external change, it must start with ourselves. This is the foundation on which the Inner Development Goals are built.
Daring to challenge your own leadership framework
All leadership begins with self-leadership. A leader’s values and beliefs shape how they approach their leadership role. These inner frameworks influence how time is spent, how employees are involved, how conflicts are handled, and how vision, culture, and strategy are developed. That’s why it’s crucial for leaders to explore their internal system – the logics, approaches, and assumptions it contains. These inner mechanisms form the invisible backdrop of leadership behavior. The Inner Development Goals can serve as a tool for reflecting on and working with this leadership backdrop.
Giving more than you take
If leaders are willing to examine their own leadership style and work with the inner aspects of regenerative leadership, it can steer their organization toward a more sustainable path. At its core, it’s about creating more value than you extract – from your leadership and from your organization. This is the central principle of regenerative leadership.
Use GAIS to support a shift in leadership approach
You can use the GAIS platform to monitor how a leadership approach grounded in the Inner Development Goals influences your organizational culture. The standard GAIS survey shows how new leadership practices affect employee engagement and seven underlying factors. The leadership survey offers insight into how employees experience leadership competencies such as presence, involvement, authenticity, recognition, trust, and meaning-making.
