Top 745 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Covey - Page 9

The role of the leader is to foster mutual respect and build a complementary team where each strength is made productive and each weakness irrelevant.

Anytime we think the problem is 'out there,' that thought is the problem. We empower what's out there to control us. The change paradigm is 'outside-in' - what's out there has to change before we can change. The proactive approach is to change from the 'inside-out': to be different, and by being different, to effect positive change in what's out there - I can be more resourceful, I can be more diligent, I can be more creative, I can be more cooperative.

The struggle comes when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass - when what we do doesn't contribute to what is most important in our lives.

Synergy: The combined effect of individuals in collaboration that exceeds the sum of their individual effects.

Contrary to what most people believe, trust is not some soft, illusive quality that you either have or you don't; rather, trust is a pragmatic, tangible, actionable asset that you can create.

In the long run, you can never accomplish a worthy end with an unworthy means.

The nature of life is to be a study of contrasts: joy/sadness, full/empty. The Main Thing is to Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.

We accomplish all that we do through delegation - either to time or to other people.

To blame and accuse other people, is to choose to empower them, to control us.

Private victories precede public victories.

We not not our feelings. We are not our moods. We not even our thoughts.

We exhaust ourselves more from the tension and the consequences of internal disharmony than from hard, unremitting work.

Priority is a function of context.

None of us see the world as it is but as we are, as our frames of reference, or maps, define the territory.

The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.

Effective people do two things: they strive to do excellent work, and they prioritize.

Be governed by your internal compass, not by some clock on the wall.

Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it.

If you focus on principles, you empower everyone who understands those principles to act without constant monitoring, evaluating, correcting, or controlling.

Principles are the territory. Values are maps.

Live the law of love. We encourage obedience to the laws of life when we live the laws of love.

The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, 'Wrong jungle!' ... Busy, efficient producers and managers often respond ... 'Shut up! We're making progress!'

Begin each day with the blueprint of my deepest values FIRMLY in mind then when challenges come, make decisions BASED on those values.

Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

Without exception, empathy is always appropriate.

Highly proactive people don't blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.

It is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.

Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity.

People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.

At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself.

If we live out of our memory, we're tied to the past and to that which is finite. When we live out of our imagination, we're tied to that which is infinite.

When you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called 'success'. But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. That's why it is called a 'failure'.

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth.

Technology and tools are useful and powerful when they are your servant and not your master.

The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there??shared vision and values.

Conscience connects us with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart.

People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally 'being lived.' They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates, and society.

To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness.

Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That's because leadership has two sides- what a person is character and what a person does- competence.

Human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled; they are four dimensional - body, mind, heart, and spirit.

Vision is seeing a future state with the mind's eye. Vision is applied imagination.

To receive gratitude with grace is a form of gratitude by itself, and not always an easy art to master.

The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people.

I believe that the habit of constant reading of good books and scholarly periodicals and magazines in many disciplines is vital to give a larger perspective and to constantly sense the interdependent nature of life.

If you want to achieve your highest aspirations and overcome your greatest challenges, identify and apply the principle or natural law that governs the results you seek. How we apply a principle will vary greatly and will be determined by our unique strengths, talents, and creativity, but, ultimately, success in any endeavor is always derived from acting in harmony with the principles to which the success is tied.

Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.

Success is when you realize obstacles you face are challenges to help you become better - and your response equals the challenge.

I find most meetings are a waste of time, because they are so ill-prepared and there's little opportunity for true synergy in producing better solutions than what anyone originally thought of. So I work hard to only attend those meetings that have strategic importance and miss all kinds of other seemingly urgent meetings.

As people enable themselves to achieve one or two goals for the year that are most meaningful, they will find power, peace of mind, and confidence in their abilities because they have achieved what they set out to accomplish. Your commitment to achieving what matters most will become the foundation for tremendous accomplishments and contributions. You will become the change you seek to make.

Many people think in terms of either/or: either you're nice or you're tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration. To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that-to achieve that balance between courage and consideration-is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.

Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are - or as we are conditioned to see it.

Balance isn't either/or; it's 'and'.

when you get a good night's sleep and wake up ready to produce throughout the day.

Strategy is important, but trust is the hidden variable. On paper you can have clarity around your objectives, but in a low-trust environment, your strategy won't be executed.

Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought.

When we look through the lens of each others' weaknesses, we make others' strengths irrelevant and their weaknesses more evident.

But borrowing strength builds weakness.

All things are created twice, but not all first creations are by conscious design. In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default. We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family, associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance - scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning.

Executives need to understand the economic benefits of trust dividend, especially when the behavior is real, not artificially or superficially created as PR to manipulate trust.