707: The Beliefs of Inspirational Leaders, with Stephen M. R. Covey

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Despite everything we know about good leadership, a lot of places still operate in a command and control mindset. In this episode, how to shift from command and control to trust and inspire. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 707.
Production Credit: Produced by innovate learning, maximizing human potential.Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:36]:
And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. We have all been in situations where we have seen command and control leadership, and so many of us want to do better than that. We want to make the shift as today’s guest is gonna invite us to do to trust and inspire. But how? How do we actually make that shift? And how do we move ourselves and our organizations in a way that helps us to lead in such healthy ways? I am so pleased to welcome today’s guest, Stephen M.R. Covey. He’s a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best selling author and former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which under his stewardship became the largest leadership development company in the world. He led the strategy that propelled his father’s book, doctor Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, to become one of the 2 most influential books of the 20th century, according to CEO Magazine. He’s the author of The Speed of Trust and more recently, Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others. Steven, what a pleasure to have you on.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:01:44]:
Well, thank you, Dave. I think the pleasure is mine. I’m excited to to be with you and with your audience and really looking forward to this conversation.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:52]:
Me too. My thinking has been shaped by your work, your dad’s work, the work of Franklin Covey for so many years, and I know we’re gonna get into a bit of that in this conversation. And you make the distinction in the book between command and control and trust and inspire, as I mentioned in the introduction. And I think if we gave a, essay assignment to to everyone listening, it said, could you, in one page, describe the difference between command and control leadership and trust and inspire? I bet we’d get pretty good responses from most of the people listening who would play out that distinction well. But there’s there’s a sub distinction here too that I think is really significant because you you go to great lengths in the book to point out that there’s different kinds of command and control. There’s authoritarian and there’s enlightened. Could you tell me a bit about that distinction?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:02:48]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I think what you’re highlighting here is important because command and control is all around us. We kinda know that. But we’ve been working on this for really a few decades now of saying we’ve gotta bring more people into the equation and a greater focus on all these human things. And we’ve done better, and we are improving. But for many, we still haven’t fully shifted the paradigm of how we view people and how we view leadership. And if you don’t shift the paradigm, then what happens, it just becomes a more enlightened version of command and control.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:03:27]:
It’s better than the authoritarian. You know, the authoritarian is I’m the boss. I’m in charge. You operate on fear. That’s fear based.

Dave Stachowiak [00:03:35]:
Yeah.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:03:35]:
And we kind of all know that doesn’t work very well today. The idea of the enlightened command and control is that you’ve moved out of fear, but now you’re more into motivation, into transactions, into, like, fairness. And so it’s what I can do for you and you for me, but it’s somewhat transactional. Hey. You know, we’ll employ you. You produce. They employ me. I produce.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:04:03]:
It’s, you know, a a fair exchange, a transaction. Treat people well, they’ll produce more, that type of thing. But we kinda still are viewing people as things. It’s just that we’re being kinder and more appropriate and recognizing that people have value. But we haven’t really shifted the paradigm into the more complete holistic view of people of having greatness inside of them being whole people and where they have their own independent worth and value apart even from the work that they’re doing. And so this enlightened command and control, I think, is our biggest challenge today because it’s good. It’s just not where it needs to be of really making the leap, crossing the chasm into trust and inspire where you’re really seeing and recognizing the greatness inside of people where people and the growth and development of people is also important just like getting the results is important. We have 2 ends with trust and inspire, getting results in a way that grows people.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:05:05]:
Whereas the enlightened command and control is kinda just getting results through people. People are just a means to an end. And and so that, I think, is some of our biggest challenge and that the good alternative that we’ve that we’re doing a lot of today as opposed to kind of the the crass, the harsher authoritarian command and control, fear based versus the in line command and control, which is more what I can do for you, you for me, transactional, but trust and inspire is inspiration. It’s partnership. It’s what I can do with you, what we can do together. So that’s where we need to go in our next evolution of our leadership style.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:50]:
You write about this point. “Intellectually, we understand this. And yet in spite of all our progress, the reality is stark. Most leaders today are still operating with the old style of command and control we’ve just become better at it much more advanced and sophisticated in its manifestation implementing the enlightened command and control style.” And it was interesting like thinking about some of the research you talk about in the book that when you look at some of the numbers, I know one of the studies highlights about, you know, 8% of organizations are in that trust and inspire, like, truly place, which means 92% aren’t. They’re somewhere in this enlightened command and control. And, and one of the distinctions you point out is the carrot and stick that that in command and control, it looks a little different. It’s a little more subtle, but, ultimately, there’s a bit of carrot and stick there that keeps driving that, doesn’t it?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:06:42]:
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s heavy carrot and stick oriented. Why? Because it’s base is just motivation with the idea that you gotta move people to do things, and you gotta motivate them instead of inspire them. I’m gonna I’m gonna contrast motivation and inspiration. And so the lead tool to motivate is rewards, you know, carrot and stick. So authoritarian command and control puts a heavy emphasis on the stick. I’m the boss.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:07:09]:
I can fire you. It’s fear based. The enlightened command and control puts a greater emphasis on the carrot. Right? Rewards. And I can pay you more money. I’ll try to bring out more out of you that way. And, look, this is all real. People do want rewards, and they and they wanna be motivated financially.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:07:28]:
And so that is part of the whole person, but there’s just more to it. So it’s necessary but insufficient. And so rewards and carrot and stick, necessary, but insufficient. There’s so much more to people and so much more to tap into that we can inspire people and enable them to give so much more of themselves, to bring out the best in people, and to also keep them, to attract them, to retain them because we see them as people, not just as things that we’re trying to get more out of. And so that is part of that. But it is a kind of a transition from not just motivating, but truly inspiring, not just carrot and stick to the body, but really trust and aspire to the heart and to the mind and to the spirit in addition to the body. So that’s the idea, and you’re right. A big distinction is moving to inspiring, not just motivating through carrot and stick only.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:27]:
Yeah. And you you share, part of your thinking in the book that you always cringe a little bit when someone you go speak somewhere and someone introduces you as a motivational speaker.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:08:36]:
Right.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:36]:
And and thinking about it much more from inspiration, that is really that’s really a key distinction between motivation versus inspiration. And I’m thinking about it in the way you’re saying it. It’s like motivation is like something I do to you, but inspiration is more inward. I don’t know if that’s a- am I framing that right?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:08:56]:
You’re framing it perfectly. Yes. The motivation is external. It’s extrinsic. It’s outside of you. That’s why it tends to be heavy carrot stick rewards and the like to try to motivate someone externally with this. The problem with that is, do rewards work? They do. But then you’re motivated to get more rewards, but you just constantly need more and more stimuli, more and more carrots.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:09:21]:
And whereas inspiration, by contrast to your point, Dave, inspiration is internal. It’s intrinsic. It’s inside of people. We’re trying to light that fire within because that fire, once lit, can burn on for months, if not for years, without the need for constant new external stimuli. See, inspire comes from the Latin term inspirare, and it means to breathe life into. So trust and inspire breathes life into relationships, into teams, into cultures. Whereas command and control, even enlightened command and control, often can suck the life out of. And so that contrast, external versus internal, motivation versus inspiration, we’re trying to light that fire within.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:10:14]:
And the best way we can do it for others is to first light our own fire within, find our purpose, our why, become inspired ourselves. Because a lit candle can light a lot of other candles. But a candle that has gone out or is unlit can’t light another candle. It’s hard to inspire another if we ourselves aren’t inspired. So there’s a sense of you move from the inside out on this. You always look in the mirror. Start with yourself. You go first.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:10:40]:
But that’s the idea. You go inward. And as my friend, Doug Conant, he’s the former CEO of Campbell, Campbell Soup Company. He likes to say the only way out is in. So we all gotta go inside starting with ourselves, and then we move outside. The relationships, the teams, the cultures, inside out. And that’s how we lead. That’s how we inspire.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:11:04]:
And so inspiration is internal whereas motivation is external.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:09]:
And in the spirit of that, one of the things I really loved about the book is, like, framing the belief system because thinking about what we believe internally, like, shapes so many of our actions and our behaviors. And it’s easy for all of us to think, okay. Well, I listen to a podcast like this. I read books. I I try to do right by people. I’m a trusted and inspired leader, at least most of the time. And one of the things you point out is the biggest barrier to becoming a trusted and inspire leader is that we think we already are 1. And that’s one of the reasons I think, like, looking at some of these beliefs and, like, where these beliefs begin is so critical.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:52]:
And, this is not the first one, but it’s the one that’s coming up for me in the context of what you just said, Steven, that leadership like, one of these big beliefs is that people are whole people. So my job as a leader is to inspire, not nearly motivate. And you highlight 4 aspects that make up the whole person. Tell me about that. What is it about the whole person perspective that’s so critical about the belief of trust and inspire?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:12:20]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So this is kind of a a fundamental belief is a mindset or a paradigm, and paradigm comes from the Greek paradigma. That means a a mental map or model. And the purpose of a map is to try to describe the territory, but you could have an inaccurate map of the territory. And so if we look at people as a territory, you know, what’s a more accurate and complete map of people? Well, it’s that people are whole people, meaning they have a body, and a heart, and a mind and a spirit. And the idea is that, you know, the body is the economic need, the physical need. The heart is the emotional, social need.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:13:07]:
The mind, the mental, intellectual need. And the spirit is that need for purpose and for meaning and for contribution to matter, to make a difference. That’s the whole person. And if people were only just a body, just economic beings, then motivation would be sufficient. Just pay them because that’s all they are. And they do have a body, and they do wanna get paid, and they wanna get paid fairly. But they also have a heart, so they wanna care and connect and belong. They have a mind.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:13:38]:
They wanna grow. They wanna develop. They have a spirit, they want meaning and purpose and contribution. They wanna matter. They wanna make a difference. They wanna have significance and have the work that they do matter. And so inspiring can take you to a whole different place than motivating alone will never reach where you only view people as economic beings instead of as a whole person with those four needs and body, heart, mind, and spirit, and you meet all 4 of those, that will take you to a whole different place because then you’re gonna tap into what really moves people, what really inspires them. And so that’s the idea, and it’s how we view them.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:14:19]:
And so I would just say this for for a leader, a practical way to apply this is to say, okay. Look. Everyone’s being paid or else people wouldn’t work at their jobs. Right? There’s a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at play here. So we gotta pay people. We’re doing that. Let’s really now also get good at the heart side, which is all around caring and belonging. And as a leader, how am I doing it in terms of the caring that that people feel from me and a sense of belonging that I built on my team? Is there a sense of belonging? Do the people know that I care? Do I care? Focus there for the heart.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:14:56]:
For the mind, focus on are people growing? Are they developing? Am I giving people opportunities to grow? And and I care about their growth. The whole idea that I say to someone, hey. My passion is your potential, your growth, your development. I want people to feel that from me that they know that I care about their growth because that matters to them. And then the idea of the the spirit is the the need for purpose, the need for meaning, and for contributions. So I’m trying to make sure I overlap the organization’s purpose with their individual purpose as best I can to try to tap into that. And then I’m really speaking to the whole person, and I can move to inspiring. So add caring and belonging to the pay, add growth and development to the pay, and add purpose and meaning and contribution to the pay.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:15:50]:
And now we’ll be inspiring the whole person, not just motivating the economic being. And an example of this, of an organization that’s doing this well, and it’s one that you’re familiar with. It’s Pepperdine University.

Dave Stachowiak [00:16:02]:
Oh, yeah.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:16:03]:
And this is that’s your that’s where you got your doctor. Right?

Dave Stachowiak [00:16:05]:
I did.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:16:06]:
Yeah. So the Garage Federal School of Business, their business school, their purpose had been to produce leaders who are best in the world, and that’s a good purpose. And then they focused on saying, you know what? They changed one word and really transformed everything. They said, no. Our purpose is not just to produce leaders who are best in the world. Our purpose is to produce leaders who are best for the world, best for the world leaders. And suddenly, people became inspired by that. I’m not just working for a great institution, doing important work, helping people become their best version of themselves.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:16:47]:
I’m working for an institution that’s all about producing leaders who will be best for the world, that will help lift society and make a difference in the leadership work that they do everywhere else. And I’m part of creating best for the world leaders, producing best for the world leaders. That inspires me. That taps into, you know, into my mind and my spirit. I volunteer that, and I feel a greater desire to go there when I feel like I’m doing something that’s so meaningful, has such purpose in it. That’s what I’m talking about, just trying to find the ways to create and embed purpose, meaning, and contribution into the work that we’re doing. And I think if we’re creative about this and intentional about it, there’s all kinds of ways and opportunities to do just that so that we can really inspire the whole person.

Dave Stachowiak [00:17:42]:
Oh, what a great example of that. And the power of changing one word, like, so powerful too. And that’s actually a really great lead in to one of the other beliefs. And you write, “there is enough for everyone as a belief. My job as a leader is to elevate caring above competing.” And I’m thinking about it because as you mentioned that previous version of that statement, like, okay, we’re gonna have the best in the world, like, a little bit more of a competition framework. And I think about that shift of most organization I mean, one of the things I’ve run into over there is, like, most organizations, most people are society. Like, we don’t have that culture of thinking about abundance, that there’s enough.

Dave Stachowiak [00:18:25]:
And I’m wondering, like, how do you start to nudge a belief that may have been centered around competing for a long time and a leader a little bit more toward thinking about abundance? Where do you start?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:18:39]:
Yeah. I think you start by looking inward at yourself and just say kind of, where am I on this? Do I believe that there is enough for everyone? Or do I also really kind of buy into the traditional paradigm that there’s just scarcity of everything, and, hey. If someone else is succeeding, then that comes at my expense. If someone else gets the credit, I’m not getting it. So I think it starts with us of saying, do I have an abundance mentality and mindset so I can help create it create it on my team and in our culture? Am I modeling this? Do I believe it myself? And and so it takes some self reflection. And here’s the big idea here is that abundance is a choice, not a condition. It’s something we can choose. We can choose abundance.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:19:35]:
So there might be scarcity all around us, and yet, we choose to say, I’m gonna be abundant, and I’m gonna share credit, and I’m gonna share recognition. I’m gonna share the rewards. I’m gonna share success. I choose to do it because I think it’s a better way to lead, and that doesn’t take away anything from me. And the more you focus on your own personal sense of self, your self trust, your own credibility so that you feel secure in that, the easier it is to become more abundant and to help have others also succeed. That doesn’t take away in anything way for me because I know who I am and what I’m all about. So you always work inside first. I work on my own character, my own competence, my own credibility.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:20:23]:
That gives me a sense of both security of I know who I am, but also a power that that I can give away power because I know who I am, and and I can share, and I can be more abundant towards others? So it starts with that. Abundance is a choice, not a condition. I knew a person that was friends with my father. I I worked with him as well. It was John Huntsman senior, and he was the founder of the Huntsman Organization, big manufacturing firm. Self made billionaire, came from nothing, and the Huntsman Organization today gives away all kinds of money. John Huntsman senior passed away a few years ago. But before he passed away, his children ran the company, and they said, our job is to try to make money faster than dad can give it away, they said.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:21:21]:
And because he was just giving everything away. And someone might say the cynic might say, well, it’s easy to give away money when you’re a self made billionaire, and you have all this money to give away. But here’s the thing. John Huntsman senior was giving away money when he didn’t have any, when he was just a poor, starving, struggling student. And he and his wife were just married, and he was giving away money they didn’t have. It was a mindset. It was a choice he had to always contribute and always to give. He had an abundance mentality when he had nothing.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:21:52]:
So it’s a choice, not a condition. And some of the most abundant people I know don’t necessarily have abundant circumstances, but they think abundantly. Some of them but I’ve also been around some people that have the abundant resources, but think scarcely with scarcity. So it’s a choice. It’s a condition. And, look, I’m not naive on this, Dave. I recognize that there are sometimes scarce situations where there’s scarce resources inside of a company and only so much to go around. I recognize that there’s some of that in organizations.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:22:28]:
And the law of scarcity is a good economic theory. But scarcity is a lousy leadership theory because there’s an abundance of everything we’re trying to create of respect, of empathy, of compassion, of creativity, of innovation, of commitment, of passion, of innovation, of trust, of joy, of energy, of well-being, of contribution, of opportunity. So that enables us to put caring above competing. Yes. Let’s compete in the marketplace, but let’s care and collaborate in the workplace because there are enough for everyone. But let’s model this by starting with a third of ourselves, with an abundance mindset, abundance mentality.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:12]:
Yeah. And so much of it, a choice as you said, and requires a bit of courage. And it makes me think of one of the other beliefs that you highlight is “enduring influence is created from the inside out. So my job as a leader is to go first.” And I think about what you just said of making that choice and especially in an organization that maybe is a little more command and control of being the person who responds with abundance or being the person who says, I’m gonna put some of the mental the the mental care and those intellectual needs into the conversations and the meaning and the purpose in those conversations. But either way, we have to go first. Right?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:24:05]:
Absolutely. Someone needs to go first. Leaders go first in any circumstance, any situation. So if we want to see, to your point, more abundance in the culture where people share credit more freely and abundantly, be the first to share credit and recognition abundantly. Model what this looks like. Be the first to believe that we can create more and there could be enough for everyone. Model it on your team. Even when we have, perhaps, actually scarce resources of what can be allocated, There might be some scarcity there, but you can model abundance around what we can create together.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:24:44]:
You can go first in that. You want more respect? Be the first to show and demonstrate respect. We want more openness and more transparency in the culture. Maybe it’s a lot of hidden agendas operating. Be the first to be open and transparent. Want more empathy, more understanding? Be the first to be empathic, to demonstrate understanding for another. We want more trust? Be the first to be both trustworthy and trusting. Someone needs to go first.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:25:16]:
Leaders go first. That’s a tall task. It sounds simple. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. Right? Yeah. But but it takes a lot of courage. So that’s the idea.

Dave Stachowiak [00:25:28]:
And it’s such a powerful idea, and I think about what you just said. And I’m reflecting on some of the recent conversations I’ve had with our members. And when we get into situations where something difficult has happened, how does someone get the results they want for their team or what are happening with scarce resources in the organization? I mean, to come back to where we started, it’s interesting, by the way. And the people that I’m working with are people who, like, get this. Right? They they are all about trust and inspire. They’re the people that could write the perfect essay and espouse all this, like, just like you and I could. And yet, when we get into, like, the tough situation and the politics and the emotion of the moment, it’s so interesting how often the conversation immediately goes to the carrots. Like, how do we pay someone a little more? How do we give them an incentive? How do we do this? And to the point earlier, like, that’s all important.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:23]:
Right? It’s one of the key pieces. But it’s interesting to me, even though we all know better, how much the heart, the mind, the spirit piece is missing. And and and oftentimes, we’re thinking like, okay. Why isn’t the organization doing this part? And and oftentimes, one of the answers is, okay. Where do I go? Like, how do I be the one that starts? How do I go first? And and and that’s what it takes.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:26:50]:
Beautiful. I agree, and it is. And and that’s it’s harder if you’re in a command and control world, and it’s all around you. Yeah. It takes a lot of courage. But if you work within your circle of influence, of saying, look. Maybe I’m in a command and control division of the company, but I’m gonna be trust and inspire on my team. I’m gonna show I’m gonna try to be a model of this kind of leadership where we get results, We do it in a way that grows people.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:27:17]:
We do it in a way that inspires trust and brings people with us, where we treat people as whole people. And then suddenly, I’m starting to perform and hitting my numbers, but also look at my engagement scores. They’re high. And people started to look and say, what’s what’s Dave doing? What’s Susan doing? They’re modeling this. They’re going first. And so it’s hard. It takes courage, but someone needs to do it. That’s what leaders do.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:27:44]:
They go first and on all these things.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:46]:
And, there’s so much hope in the research too. Like, I think about Amy Edmondson’s research, out at Harvard on psychological safety and making the point that you just said, like-

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:57]:
You may work in an organization that doesn’t get this doesn’t follow this process and yet for your own individual team you can do a ton and maybe it doesn’t ever go beyond your own individual team but boy you can sure do a lot by just starting there of creating a an atmosphere of trust inspiring and tapping into psychological safety it’s it’s such a great place to start and us going first and the language that we use too and that leads to like one of the other things you mentioned on beliefs is that a leader who’s thinking about things through trust and inspire is believing that people have greatness inside them. And the job of the leader is to unleash the potential not to control people. And you make the point when you’re talking about that belief that it’s one thing to have that belief. It’s another thing to communicate it. What’s so important about the communication piece of that?

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:28:49]:
Because the communication of that belief to others is what helps them come to believe it themselves. And that’s what a leader does is they see and communicate people’s worth and potential so clearly that the others come to see it in themselves. That’s great leadership. But and, you know, you might see it, but they might not. But when you communicate it to them, you can do this. I believe in you. You’ve got this in you. I can see it.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:29:21]:
I can see these great strengths that you have. I’m confident in you. I’m gonna give you this chance, this opportunity. When I have someone that’s I feel like, gosh, they they believe in me. They believe in me more than I believe in myself. They have more confidence in me than I do maybe. Then I start to come to see it that maybe I can do this. That’s great leadership.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:29:40]:
And so this is a great point you’re bringing up, Dave, because this fundamental belief that there’s greatness in people, you know, people have greatness inside of them, is often in a command and control world contested by the traditional language and structures where we have, in many organizations, there’s we talk about the high potentials, and the high potentials is basically taking, is basically saying some people have greatness in them. We’ll call them high potentials. What does that communicate to the rest of the people in the organization? And even to us, we suddenly don’t look for the greatness in others. We just look up for it in the high potentials. What if we, as a leader, went first and saw greatness in everyone? It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see. That’s what Henry David Thoreau said. So look for the greatness.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:30:29]:
See the greatness. It might be lying dormant, but it’s there. If we can see it and then communicate it to another so they can come to see it in themselves, then begin to develop it and then unleash it, meaning giving people an opportunity, giving them a chance, giving them a responsibility, a job to do with the belief that we’re behind them. They start to see it in themselves, and then they become a leader. And then that’s the greatest act of leadership is to create other leaders this way, helping them see that potential. So here’s a key piece of advice I’d give to a leader that wants to to implement this this idea of seeing the greatness in others is to try to focus on treating people according to their potential, not just their behavior. Because they might not know who they are yet, that they’re capable of being a great leader. But if you treat them according to their potential, they tend to rise up to that potential and become that person.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:31:27]:
When you treat them that way, when you communicate their potential to them so they come to see it in themselves, When you develop it and then unleash it, giving them an opportunity, they start to become it. And you are being a great leader because you are unleashing the greatness that’s in others. But it all starts by first seeing it and then communicating it. So I call this see, communicate, develop, and unleash potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:31:56]:
Stephen, Franklin Covey is an organization, and your family in particular has done so much to inspire many of us in leadership over decades decades not only leading organizations but leading ourselves well and to that point bonnie’s teaching a class right now all these decades later that’s centered around the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s just, like, it’s been such a timeless framework. And you know, I often ask people what they’ve changed their minds on. And I’ve got a slightly different version of that question for you. You talk about your dad a lot in the book and the 7 habits and his influence on your life. I’m curious, like, what you recall from your dad that he taught you about leadership that caused you to change your mind on something.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:32:45]:
Yes. I would say this, that the idea that interdependence is a much higher and more impactful value than independence. And that was built deep in the 7 Habits, which is really all about how you move a person from dependence to independence to interdependence. Again, sequence matters. And so the first three habits have move a person from dependence to independence. The next three habits move a person from independence to interdependence, and that’s a higher value. You can do more together. And as I spent time with my father, that paradigm shift that we need to move to a higher level, interdependence.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:33:31]:
It’s a with paradigm. It’s a partnership paradigm, a collaborative paradigm, and it’s gotta start with that paradigm shift. That’s a key insight, and it’s the idea that also my father would would say this, that the most significant breakthroughs are breakwiths. It’s a breakwith, the traditional thinking of independence to say there’s interdependence.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:54]:
Stephen M. R. Covey is the author of Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others. Stephen, thank you so much for your work.

Stephen M. R. Covey [00:34:03]:
You’re welcome, Dave. Thank you and for the great contribution you are making with this Coaching for Leaders podcast, 13 plus years. We’re doing this and the difference, the impact you are having on helping people becoming the best version of themselves as a leader, the coaching that you’re providing through this podcast. So really honored to be with you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:23]:
Well, thank you. It is a real joy every single day. If this conversation was helpful to you, 3 related episodes I’d recommend. One of them is episode 404, how to build psychological safety. Amy Edmonson was my guest on that episode talking about her work out at Harvard and all the incredible research she’s been doing over the years to help us all get better at making teams, organizations, safe places for people to be able to communicate and to talk about mistakes. And so many of the things we all espouse in organizations and yet in practice doesn’t happen in a lot of places. The starting points for that in episode 404 and where to begin. And, yes, even if you’re in an organization where that may not be the case broadly, there’s a lot all of us can do as individual leaders to bring more of that into our teams.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:17]:
Episode 404, a great starting point for you. Also recommended episode 488, leadership means you go first. Keith Ferrazzi was my guest on that episode, and that was his message. Leadership means we go first. It is the responsibility of the leader to set the tone and, yes, to take the first step. You heard echoes of that in this conversation with Steven Moore to inspire us from Keith. Keith will also be back on the show in just a few weeks as well, episode 488 for that. And then finally, I’d recommend episode 626, the starting point for repairing trust with Henry Cloud.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:51]:
Henry and I talked about the situation we all find ourselves in, which is someone has broken trust with us for whatever reason, and then what do we do? We’ve almost all of us run into that situation in the workplace. Most of us many times where for whatever reason we’ve lost trust with someone else, and yet we still need to work with them. Maybe they’re a peer. Maybe they’re a manager. Maybe they’re a key stakeholder. How do we move forward past an event where trust was destroyed? Episode 626, the beginning points for that. All of those episodes, you can find, of course, on the coachingforleaders.com website. And if you haven’t yet, I’d invite you to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:33]:
It’s gonna give you access to the entire library of episodes that I’ve aired since 2011 with all the experts who’ve appeared on the show and the ability to search by topics. You can find exactly what you’re looking for. And one of the other resources inside of the free membership is a resource called Dave’s library. That is where I catalog everything that I find online. Anytime I see a article that I think is useful in Harvard Business Review and read it and find it helpful and maybe even pass it along in the weekly leadership guide that many of you receive. I also database it inside of my library with the relevant tags on the topics that are most important. If I find something in the New York Times, I do the same thing. If I hear an episode from my friend, Tom Henschel’s podcast, the look and sound of leadership that I think is gonna be useful, not only do I pass it along in the guide, but I put it inside of Dave’s library, inside the free membership.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:26]:
There are thousands of entries there. Do not spend time tracking everything down yourself. If you’re looking for a resource or a credibility piece for a stakeholder and you’re trying to find just the right resource, the article, the video, the podcast for you, that’s a great place to start. Set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com. You get inside, just click on Dave’s library. You’ll have full access to my entire library. It’s the same library I used to find things that I know I’ve databased that’ll be useful for not only you, but also for me too. So right inside there, it’s just one of the many benefits inside of the free membership.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:02]:
And if you’re looking for a bit more, you may wanna find out about Coaching for Leaders Plus while you’re online. Go over to coachingforleaders.plus for more information. One of the key benefits of Coaching for Leaders Plus is a weekly journal entry every single week for me. I am recording a specific thought, an idea, oftentimes a model I think will be helpful, and most recently, some thoughts on trajectory of our lives and our careers and how a small nudge can make a big difference and where we can begin a little inspiration to do that. It’s just one of the several benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. You can find out more by going over to coachingforleaders.plus. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided today as always by Sierra Priest.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:54]:
Next week, I’m glad to welcome Charles Feldman to the show. We are gonna be having a related conversation on how to prepare for a conversation with someone you don’t trust. Join me for that conversation with Charles, and I’ll see you back here on Monday.