Covey Stephen Quotes & Sayings

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize. — Stephen Covey

Everyone must be proactive and do all they can to help themselves to stay employed. — Stephen Covey

But borrowing strength builds weakness. — Stephen R. Covey

You can say you love someone - but unless you demonstrate that love through your actions, your words become meaningless. — Stephen Covey

Perhaps a sense of possessing needs to come to come before a sense of genuine sharing. — Stephen R. Covey

When we value correct principles, we have truth - a knowledge of things as they are. — Stephen Covey

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us. — Stephen R. Covey

Distinguish between the person and the behavior or performance. — Stephen Covey

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly. — Stephen R. Covey

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

For a team to succeed, responsibility must go down deep into the organization, down to the roots. Getting that to happen requires a leader who will delegate responsibility and authority to the team. Stephen Covey remarked, "People and organizations don't grow much without delegation and completed staff work, because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses." Good leaders seldom restrict their teams; they release them. — John C. Maxwell

Studies have identified a significant 'skills gap' between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today's global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world. — Stephen Covey

Effective communication is built on the cement of trust. And trust is based on trustworthiness, not politics. — Stephen Covey

Everyone chooses one of two roads in life - the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning. — Stephen Covey

The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read. — Stephen R. Covey

I keep my phone number unlisted and rely on my associates to handle all voice mail, e-mail, faxes. — Stephen Covey

Common sense is not always common practice. — Stephen Covey

You can't hold someone accountable for results if you supervise their methods. — Stephen Covey

Empathic listening takes time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you're already miles down the road; to redo; to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems; to deal with the results of not giving people psychological air. — Stephen Covey

It's not enough to have values without vision ; you want to be good, but you want to be good for something. On the other hand, vision without values can create a Hitler . An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence; what you want to be and what you want to do in your life. — Stephen Covey

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. — Stephen Covey

Someone once inquired of a Far Eastern Zen master, who had a great serenity and peace about him no matter what pressures he faced, "How do you maintain that serenity and peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation." He meditated early in the morning and for the rest of the day, he carried the peace of those moments with him in his mind and heart. — Stephen Covey

We're constantly making choices about the way we spend our time. The issue is not between the good and the bad, but between the good and the best. So often, the enemy of the best is the good. — Stephen Covey

I am senting many books for endorsement purposes, which enables me to stay relevant in my own field, and I have people that help me decide which ones I should read and endorse. — Stephen Covey

Management is formal authority given from above. Leadership is moral authority given from below and all around. — Stephen Covey

It is unpleasant and disturbing to be rejected. It is deeply satisfying to be accepted. — Stephen Covey

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

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most. — Stephen R. Covey

Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust. Nothing is as fulfilling as a relationship of trust. Nothing is as inspiring as an offering of trust. Nothing is as profitable as the economics of trust. Nothing has more influence than a reputation of trust. — Stephen Covey

Every time I see high-trust cultures, I see a lessening of adversarialism. — Stephen Covey

Frankl hypothesized that we have three parts to our nature: — Stephen R. Covey

Succeed at home first. Seek and merit divine help. Never compromise with honesty. Remember the people involved. Hear both sides before judging. Obtain counsel of others. Defend those who are absent. Be sincere yet decisive. Develop one new proficiency a year. Plan tomorrow's work today. Hustle while you wait. Maintain a positive attitude. Keep a sense of humor. Be orderly in person and in work. Do not fear mistakes - fear only the absence of creative, constructive, and corrective responses to those mistakes. Facilitate the success of subordinates. Listen twice as much as you speak. Concentrate all abilities and efforts on the task at hand, not worrying about the next job or promotion. — Stephen R. Covey

Independent people can get what they want through — Stephen R. Covey

You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination." So it is that when disasters occur in our lives and we go within to discover our inner strength or to seek discernment, we have choices to continue in the same direction the storm of life has paved for us, or adjust our sail and get back on track to what we believe and know to be our path in life. — Stephen R. Covey

He (Anwar Sadat) records that he was almost loathe to leave his prison cell because it was there that he realized that real success is success with self. It's not in having things, but in having mastery, having victory over self. — Stephen R. Covey

When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. — Stephen Covey

We think we see the world as it is, when in fact we see the world as we are. — Stephen Covey

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success. — Stephen Covey

Just as the education of nerve and sinew is vital to the excellent athlete and education of the mind is vital to the scholar, education of the conscience is vital to the truly proactive, highly effective person. Training and educating the conscience, however, requires even greater concentration, more balanced discipline, more consistently honest living. It requires regular feasting on inspiring literature, thinking noble thoughts and, above all, living in harmony with its still small voice. — Stephen Covey

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

The only person I know, is the person I want to be — Stephen R. Covey

Without trust, the best we can do is compromise. — Stephen Covey

Priority is a function of context. — Stephen Covey

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems. — Stephen Covey

Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. — Stephen Covey

I have seen the consequences of attempting to shortcut this natural process of growth often in the business world, where executives attempt to "buy" a new culture of improved productivity, quality, morale, and customer service with strong speeches, smile training, and external interventions, or through mergers, acquisitions, and friendly or unfriendly takeovers. But they ignore the low-trust climate produced by such manipulations. When these methods don't work, they look for other Personality Ethic techniques that will - all the time ignoring and violating the natural principles and processes on which a high-trust culture is based. — Stephen R. Covey

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen. — Stephen Covey

Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won't necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one. — Stephen Covey

Live your life by a compass, not a clock. — Stephen Covey

Seek to understand rather than be understood. — Stephen Covey

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs. — Stephen Covey

I know it is possible not only to restore trust but to actually enhance it. The difficult things that we got through with the important people in our lives can become fertile ground for the growth of enduring trust - trust that is actually stronger because it's been tested and proved through challenge. — Stephen Covey

Proactive people carry their own weather with them. — Stephen Covey

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 to shape our lives by default. — Stephen Covey

Nevertheless, the only way we can move from where we are now to where we would like to be is to accept where we are now. — Stephen Covey

I believe in this concept that you learn by teaching. — Stephen Covey

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart; his heart is where his enthusiasm is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is. Treat employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers, because that's what they are. They volunteer the best parts - their hearts and minds. — Stephen Covey

It's not only a matter of when to do things, but whether or not to do them at all. — Stephen Covey

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. — Stephen Covey

If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent. — Stephen R. Covey

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

When people have a real sense of legacy, a sense of mattering, a sense of contribution, it seems to tap into the deepest part of their heart and soul. It brings out the best and subordinates the rest. — Stephen Covey

An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations. — Stephen Covey

The solutions to our problems are and always will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society throughout history. — Stephen Covey

Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It doesn't begin and end with the writing of a personal mission statement. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things. — Stephen R. Covey

What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. There are people we trust because we know their character. Whether they're eloquent or not, whether they have human-relations techniques or not, we trust them and work with them. — Stephen Covey

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!' — Stephen Covey

Trust is central to an economy that works. — Stephen Covey

The more authentic you become, the more genuine in your expression, particularly regarding personal experiences and even self-doubts, the more people can relate to your expression and the safer it makes them feel to express themselves. That expression, in turn, feeds on the other person's spirit, and genuine creative empathy takes place, producing new insights and learnings and a sense of excitement and adventure that keeps the process going. — Stephen Covey

The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focused on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based. — Stephen Covey

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. — Stephen Covey

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are--or, as we are conditioned to see it. — Stephen R. Covey

If you don't choose to do it in leadership time up front, you do it in crisis management time down the road. — Stephen Covey

No matter how long we've walked life's pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It's never too late. We can find our voice. — Stephen R. Covey

Taking initiative is a form of self-empowerment. — Stephen Covey

Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply. — Stephen Covey

Where we stand depends on where we sit. — Stephen R. Covey

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. — Stephen Covey

Difference is the beginning of synergy. — Stephen Covey

Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. — Stephen Covey

The exercise of true leadership is inversely proportional to the exercise of power. — Stephen Covey

A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it's personal, it's positive, it's present tense, it's visual, and it's emotional. — Stephen Covey

Over time, I have come to this simple definition of leadership: Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. — Stephen Covey

Management works in the system; leadership works on the system. — Stephen Covey

The highest challenge inside organizations is to enable each person to contribute his or her unique talents and passion to accomplish the organization's purpose. — Stephen Covey

Trust is the glue of life. — Stephen Covey

Principles always have natural consequences attached to them. There are positive consequences when we live in harmony with the principles. There are negative consequences when we ignore them. But because these principles apply to everyone, whether or not they are aware, this limitation is universal. And the more we know of correct principles, the greater is our personal freedom to act wisely. — Stephen Covey

Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective. — Stephen Covey

We all go through stages. Concerns about appearances, making good impressions, being popular, comparing yourself to others, having unbridled ambition, wanting to make money, striving to be recognized and noticed and trying to establish yourself, all fade as your responsibilities and character grow. — Stephen Covey

It's not enough to dream. It's not enough to try. It's not enough to set goals or climb ladders. It's not enough to value. The effort has to be based on practical realities that produce the result. Only then can we dream, set goals, and work to achieve them with confidence. — Stephen R. Covey

Through real-life stories, Kristin Kaufman illustrates the core idea of being present in the moment and opening oneself up to new ideas in order to become an authentic leader in life. — Stephen R. Covey

Only basic goodness gives life to technique. To — Stephen R. Covey

The great contributors in life are those who, though afraid of the knock at the door, still answer it. — Stephen Covey

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles. — Stephen Covey

It's easy to say 'no!' when there's a deeper 'yes!' burning inside. — Stephen Covey

A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. — Stephen R. Covey

When you engage in a work that taps your talent and fuels your passion
that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet
therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul's code. — Stephen R. Covey

Improve relationships with others by assuming that they can hear everything you say about them — Stephen Covey

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, — Stephen R. Covey

But with the steady disintegration of the family in modern society over the last century, the role of the school in bridging the gap has become vital! — Stephen Covey