Page 48 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart

solvers. They're cutting through the undergrowth, clearing it out.
The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals,
holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies, and setting up working
schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders.
The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, "Wrong
jungle!"
But how do the busy, efficient producers and managers often respond? "Shut up! We're making
progress."
As individuals, groups, and businesses, we're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we
don't even realize we're in the wrong jungle. And the rapidly changing environment in which we live
makes effective leadership more critical than it has ever been -- in every aspect of independent and
interdependent life.
We are more in need of a vision or designation and a compass (a set of principles or directions) and
less in need of a road map. We often don't know what the terrain ahead will be like or what we will
need to go through it; much will depend on our judgment at the time. But an inner compass will
always give us direction.
Effectiveness -- often even survival -- does not depend solely on how much effort we expend, but on
whether or not the effort we expend is in the right jungle. And the metamorphosis taking place in
most every industry and profession demands leadership first and management second.
In business, the market is changing so rapidly that many products and services that successfully met
consumer tastes and needs a few years ago are obsolete today. Proactive powerful leadership must
constantly monitor environmental change, particularly customer buying habits and motives, and
provide the force necessary to organize resources in the right direction.
Such changes as deregulation of the airline industry, skyrocketing costs of health care, and the great
quality and quantity of imported cars impact the environment in significant ways. If industries do not
monitor the environment, including their own work teams, and exercise the creative leadership to keep
headed in the right direction, no amount of management expertise can keep them from failing.
Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual phrased it, "like
straightening deck chairs on the Titanic." No management success can compensate for failure in
leadership. But leadership is hard because we're often caught in a management paradigm.
At the final session of a year-long executive development program in Seattle, the president of an oil
company came up to me and said, "Stephen, when you pointed out the difference between leadership
and management in the second month, I looked at my role as the president of this company and
realized that I had never been into leadership. I was deep into management, buried by pressing
challenges and the details of day-to-day logistics. So I decided to withdraw from management. I
could get other people to do that. I wanted to really lead my organization.
"It was hard. I went through withdrawal pains because I stopped dealing with a lot of the pressing,
urgent matters that were right in front of me and which gave me a sense of immediate accomplishment.
I didn't receive much satisfaction as I started wrestling with the direction issues, the culture-building
issues, the deep analysis of problems, the seizing of new opportunities. Others also went through
withdrawal pains from their working style comfort zones. They missed the easy accessibility I had
given them before. They still wanted me to be available to them, to respond, to help solve their
problems on a day-to-day basis.
"But I persisted. I was absolutely convinced that I needed to provide leadership. And I did.
Today our whole business is different. We're more in line with our environment. We have doubled
our revenues and quadrupled our profits. I'm into leadership."
I'm convinced that too often parents are also trapped in the management paradigm, thinking of
control, efficiency, and rules instead of direction, purpose, and family feeling.