Covey - The 7 habits of highly effective people
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customer buying <strong>habits</strong> and motives, and provide the force necessary to organize<br />
resources in the right direction.<br />
Such changes as deregulation <strong>of</strong> the airline industry, skyrocketing costs <strong>of</strong> health care,<br />
and the great quality and quantity <strong>of</strong> imported cars impact the environment in significant<br />
ways. If industries do not monitor the environment, including their own work teams, and<br />
exercise the creative leadership to keep headed in the right direction, no amount <strong>of</strong><br />
management expertise can keep them from failing.<br />
Efficient management without <strong>effective</strong> leadership is, as one individual phrased it, "like<br />
straightening deck chairs on the Titanic." No management success can compensate for<br />
failure in leadership. But leadership is hard because we're <strong>of</strong>ten caught in a management<br />
paradigm.<br />
At the final session <strong>of</strong> a year-long executive development program in Seattle, the<br />
president <strong>of</strong> an oil company came up to me and said, "Stephen, when you pointed out the<br />
difference between leadership and management in the second month, I looked at my role<br />
as the president <strong>of</strong> this company and realized that I had never been into leadership. I was<br />
deep into management, buried by pressing challenges and the details <strong>of</strong> day-to-day<br />
logistics. So I decided to withdraw from management. I could get other <strong>people</strong> to do that.<br />
I wanted to really lead my organization.<br />
"It was hard. I went through withdrawal pains because I stopped dealing with a lot <strong>of</strong> the<br />
pressing, urgent matters that were right in front <strong>of</strong> me and which gave me a sense <strong>of</strong><br />
immediate accomplishment. I didn't receive much satisfaction as I started wrestling with<br />
the direction issues, the culture-building issues, the deep analysis <strong>of</strong> problems, the seizing<br />
<strong>of</strong> new opportunities. Others also went through withdrawal pains from their working<br />
style comfort zones. <strong>The</strong>y missed the easy accessibility I had given them before. <strong>The</strong>y still<br />
wanted me to be available to them, to respond, to help solve their problems on a day-today<br />
basis.<br />
"But I persisted. I was absolutely convinced that I needed to provide leadership. And I<br />
did. Today our whole business is different. We're more in line with our environment. We<br />
have doubled our revenues and quadrupled our pr<strong>of</strong>its. I'm into leadership."<br />
I'm convinced that too <strong>of</strong>ten parents are also trapped in the management paradigm,<br />
thinking <strong>of</strong> control, efficiency, and rules instead <strong>of</strong> direction, purpose, and family feeling.<br />
And leadership is even more lacking in our personal lives. We're into managing with<br />
efficiency, setting and achieving goals before we have even clarified our values.<br />
Rescripting: Becoming Your Own First Creator<br />
As we previously observed, proactivity is based on the unique human endowment <strong>of</strong><br />
self-awareness. <strong>The</strong> two additional unique human endowments that enable us to expand<br />
our proactivity and to exercise personal leadership in our lives are imagination and<br />
conscience.<br />
Through imagination, we can visualize the uncreated worlds <strong>of</strong> potential that lie within<br />
us. Through conscience, we can come in contact with universal laws or principles with<br />
our own singular talents and avenues <strong>of</strong> contribution, and with the personal guidelines<br />
within which we can most <strong>effective</strong>ly develop them. Combined with self-awareness,<br />
these two endowments empower us to write our own script.<br />
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