Featured option was designed to move some of the listings to the top of the Inventory list. You can select which listing is featured when you visit it and check this box.
You can now edit Inventory page and change “Sort by” option to “Relevant” it will force featured listings to be always on top
and please edit Inventory > Sort By > Initial Sort By to “Relevant”
This way featured listings will be always on top.
You can also narrow some of the elements to display only featured listings e.g. your homepage Grid / Carousel: