Title :
Principle-Centred Leadership
Author :
Stephen R.
Covey
Publisher :
Free Press,
1992
ISBN :
0671792806
Pages :
150
The Big Idea
When things go wrong -
whether in your personal or professional life -¬ chances are you resort
to quick-fix plans, strategies and techniques for altering and improving
your environment. Often, the problem is caused by a misalignment of your
actions and decisions with the correct principles. To solve it, you need
to alter not the external circumstances but your perspective.
Best-selling author
Stephen Covey introduces a new management paradigm that can help you
transform, not only your organization, but your personal relationships
as well. He reveals how you can achieve effective personal and
organizational leadership by centering your actions and decisions on a
set of time-tested principles.
Part One: Placing
Principles at Your Centre
Do most of the following
apply to your organization?
-
Interdepartmental
rivalries
-
Subgroups polarized
around key philosophical issues
-
Back-talking and
bad-mouthing
-
Cosmetic niceties on
the surface exchanges
-
Unionized; with people
working on two cylinders
-
Deep, entrenched
interests between departments
-
Special contests and
promotions constantly going on to make sales quotas
These are signs of
imbalance or misalignment. They indicate that you are using the wrong
paradigm in your organization, that you are centred not on solid
principles but on distorted values and beliefs.
Principles vs. Values
An example of a value is:
The more profit we get, the better our organization will be and the
better the lives of our members. An example of a correct principle would
be: Profit should come second to ethical considerations.
Both values and principles
can dictate our behaviour and how we judge and evaluate our environment.
How are they different?
Values are subjective,
temporary maps that show us where to go or what to do given a particular
situation. They can become obsolete when the situation changes. Values
represent our cultural influences, personal discoveries and family
scripts. They vary from person to person, or, more accurately, from role
to role. A single individual can carry with him several sets of values
for each of his different roles - child, sibling, parent, spouse,
friend, lover, executive - and these values can contradict each other,
and change over time depending on the person's newly acquired
experiences and insights.
Principles are like
compasses that point us to our true direction. They are objective,
unchanging natural laws that are correct and relevant regardless of the
external circumstances. They are timeless, universal behavioural
standards that have governed the social values of all the great human
societies and civilizations. They apply to all people and all roles at
whatever time and place and in whatever situation. Examples are
fairness, equality, justice, integrity, honesty and trust.
The Benefits of the
Principle-Centred Approach
Having several sets of
conflicting values can make you lose direction. When a wave of change
suddenly hits, you could easily be swept off your feet. You need a
centre that will keep you steady and consistent through whatever crisis
comes your way. By basing your actions on principles rather than values
you will be able to navigate through turbulent change, all the while
maintaining your perspective and judgment.
The Four Dimensions
When you are
principle-centred, you gain four sources of strength:
1.
Security - your sense of worth, identity,
emotional anchorage, self-esteem and personal strength.
2.
Guidance - the direction you receive in
life.
3.
Wisdom - your perspective on life; your
sense of balance and understanding, judgment, discernment and
comprehension.
4.
Power - your capacity to act and make
decisions; your strength and courage to accomplish something.
A Principle-Centred Life
When your life is guided
not by principles but by alternative centres (such as work, pleasure,
friends, enemies, spouse, family, self, church, possessions, and money)
you have no real power. Your strength is based on other people and on
external circumstances, which are never reliable.
When you centre your life
on correct principles, you become your own master. You chart your own
course and remain steadfast and rooted whatever happens. You take
control of all aspects of your life, including your possessions and
relationships. You are not threatened by change, or by other people's
opinions.
A Principle-Centred
Organization
When your organization is
guided not by principles but by alternative centres (such as profit,
supplier, employee, owner, customer, program, policy, competition, image
and technology) the organization will have no real power. You will tend
to control and exploit in order to gain what you want, and this can make
you dependent on other people and external circumstances.
When you centre your
organization on correct principles, it is not easily threatened by
external circumstances. Even competition becomes a healthy learning
source.
The Four Key Principles
The key to becoming truly
principle-centred is by aligning your life with correct principles
slowly but surely, from the inside out. The change should progress on
four levels:
-
Level One: Personal
-
your relationship with yourself.
-
Level Two: Interpersonal
- your relationships and interactions with others.
-
Level Three: Managerial
- your responsibility to get your job done with others.
-
Level Four:
Organizational
- your need to organize people (to recruit them, train them,
compensate them, build teams, solve problems, and create aligned
structure, strategy, and systems).
Each level has a
corresponding key principle that you will need to centre on:
1.
Trustworthiness
at the
personal
level.
2.
Trust
at the
interpersonal
level.
3.
Empowerment
at the
managerial
level.
4.
Alignment
at the
organizational
level.
Part Two: The Four-Step
Process
Step One: Trustworthiness
at the Personal Level
Trust is the basis of all
personal relationships, and in order to gain other people's trust and
thus become more effective both as a person and as a leader, you should
first earn that trust, by showing that you are trustworthy.
Trustworthiness, on the
personal level, is based on both a person's character and competence. In
order to get people to consider you trustworthy, you should convince
them not only that you are good and honest, but also that you can do
what they expect you to do.
It is easy to acquire
skills that increase your level of competence. The hard part is
developing character. Following are some useful guidelines that you can
follow to facilitate this process.
Characteristics of
Principle-Centred Leaders
Trustworthy, and therefore
effective, people usually exhibit the following personal
characteristics:
-
They are continuously
learning.
They read, watch, observe and learn all the time; they are
constantly trying to acquire new knowledge and skills.
-
They are
service-oriented.
A genuine sense of responsibility toward others is a natural
manifestation of being principle-centred.
-
They radiate positive
energy.
Principle-centred people are happy and optimistic; they tend to
dissipate negative energy and maintain a positive outlook.
-
They believe in other
people.
They believe in the unseen potential of other; they don't
prejudge.
-
They lead balanced
lives.
They lead well-rounded lives; they are able to establish a
fulfilling career and pursue personal interests while maintaining
healthy interpersonal relationships with others.
-
They see life as an
adventure.
They are not afraid to bust out of their comfort zones in order
to try something new, to experience something they have never
experienced before; they lead unpredictable, exciting lives.
-
They are synergistic
. They are highly creative; they can come up with synergistic
solutions to problems.
-
They exercise for
self-renewal.
They develop themselves physically, mentally, emotionally and
spiritually.
Developing Primary
Greatness
Personality, which is given
too much importance, constitutes only secondary greatness.
Primary greatness
consists
of a noble character, not a great personality.
You can achieve secondary
greatness through social status, position, fame, wealth or talent.
Primary greatness, however, can only be achieved through goodness of
character.
Three Character Traits
In order to develop your
character and achieve primary greatness, it is essential that you
cultivate the following three character traits:
1.
Integrity.
Your ability to keep meaningful commitments and promises.
2.
Maturity.
You have to be emotionally mature to be able to develop and draw
from your internal strength rather than from your position, power,
credentials, seniority or affiliations. You will also need maturity in
order to step out of your self-centeredness and to develop meaningful
relationships with others
3.
Abundance mentality.
You should believe that there is plenty out there for everybody.
This mentality flows out of a deep sense of personal worth and security.
When you have abundance mentality, you have no qualms about sharing what
you have - including recognition, profits, and responsibility - with
others because you know there is plenty for everybody and you don't have
to hoard anything.
Obeying Your Conscience
Another key to achieving
primary greatness - to developing character - is training and following
your conscience. This means you hold yourself accountable for your life
(your time, talents, money, possessions, relationships, family and even
your body). Most importantly, this means treating others well and not
taking advantage of them to serve your own selfish purposes.
Following the Law of the
Farm
The process of becoming
principle-centred takes time. There are no short cuts. In fact, people
who are principle-centred do not rely on quick fixes in order to save
time; rather, they follow the law of the farm, which states that you
cannot speed up the natural rhythm of nature in order to suit your own
purposes. You have to learn to wait patiently, just as farmers wait for
seeds to grow and for plants to bear fruit.
Part of being an effective
and mature person is learning to respect natural processes. This means
taking things for what level they are in and waiting for them to evolve
or develop naturally. It means you must accept the following things as
true:
-
Growth is a natural
process.
-
We are all at
different "days" or levels of growth in the physical, social,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual areas.
-
Comparisons are
dangerous.
-
There are no short
cuts.
Three Great Forces and How
to Overcome Them
What usually keeps you
from keeping true to your principles, are three temptations: appetites
and passions, pride and pretension, and aspiration and ambition. To keep
yourself from being a victim of these temptations, you must strive to
keep the following three resolutions:
1.
To overcome appetites and
passions, exercise self-discipline and self-denial
. Don't let your passions and appetites rule you. Take control.
2.
To overcome pride and
pretension, work on character and competence.
Be your own person, even when outside pressures force you to be
otherwise.
3.
To overcome aspiration and
ambition, dedicate your talents and resources to noble purposes and
provide service to others.
This will prevent you from becoming too self-absorbed and
self-serving, and focusing too much on your own ambition and gain.
Moral Compassing: Aligning
to True North
Values are like maps that
point us to where you want to go to achieve a particular short-term
goal. Principles are like a compass that points you to "true north," to
a consistent direction that will lead you to long-term effectiveness and
success. You should thus strive to always be principle-centred, not
merely value-driven.
When you are governed by
your values, you tend to lose direction and to wander aimlessly, wasting
resources and opportunities along the way. When you are governed by
correct principles, and are aligned to true north, you achieve real
vision and direction.
Step Two: Trust at the
Interpersonal Level
Trust on the interpersonal
level is based on the trustworthiness of the people involved. But it is
also dependent on your ability to meaningfully relate with everyone you
encounter, whether at home or at work. The following are some useful
guidelines for establishing and maintaining meaningful interpersonal
relations.
Ten Tools for Increasing
Your Principle-Centred Power
Principle-centred or
legitimate power is based on trust, respect and honour, not fear or
coercion. Here are ten tools you can use to increase your honour, and
therefore your power, as a leader:
1.
Persuasion
. The ability to argue strongly and convincingly about your
position while maintaining genuine respect for your followers' opinions.
2.
Patience.
Exercising patience over your followers' shortcomings, and with
the achievement of goals.
3.
Gentleness.
Towards the feelings and vulnerabilities of your followers.
4.
Teachableness
. Being open to learning new things from your followers.
5.
Acceptance.
Accepting instead of judging your followers' mistakes or
imperfections.
6.
Kindness.
Being sensitive, caring and thoughtful.
7.
Openness.
Being open to possibilities.
8.
Compassionate Confrontation.
Making corrections with warmth and concern.
9.
Consistency.
Sticking to a personal code based on a solid set of values and
principles and always acting based on this.
10.
Integrity.
Acting only for the good of others, without a desire to take
advantage of them.
Eight Ways to Enrich Your
Marriage and Family Relationships
Principle-centeredness
should be applied not only to your professional life but to your
personal one as well. To keep your personal relationships healthy, apply
the following principle-based practices:
1.
Retain a long-term
perspective
. Think of your marriage not in terms of short-term issues and
goals, but in terms of a long-term vision. This will motivate you to
keep hanging in there during tough times.
2.
Re-script your marriage and
family life
. You and your family members, especially your spouse, may have
been programmed with different "scripts" or ideas and archetypes about
life and relationships. This can be sources of conflict. Do some
reprogramming.
3.
Reconsider your roles.
Think about your current role as a parent or spouse. Make sure you
take on the role that is necessary for your family in its present state.
4.
Reset your goals
. Instead of focusing on results, focus on building your family's
emotional bank. This could be done by constantly showing affection,
warmth and caring.
5.
Realign family systems
. There are four necessary systems that you should establish in
your family:
1.
Goals and plans.
2.
Stewardships and a discipline program.
3.
Teaching and training.
4.
Communicating and problem-solving.
6.
Refine three vital skills:
time management, communication and problem-solving.
7.
Regain internal security
. Stop depending on external sources and other people, including
your spouse, for your sense of happiness and security. Develop internal
sources of personal worth, value and security, those that are
independent of other people and circumstances.
8.
Develop a family mission
statement.
Base it on sound principles. Identify core values and long-term
goals. This can provide a stable and secure foundation and a good basis
for whatever programs or decisions you need to establish or make in the
future.
Step Three: Empowerment at
the Managerial Level
The real role of the
manager is not to control and to impose his own decisions on his people,
but rather, to empower them. A manager must encourage his staff and push
them to be the best that they can be to bring out their full potential.
As a result, employees willingly work for the manager for the good of
the organization. Such empowerment can only be achieved by showing trust
and faith in the skills and judgment of employees.
Shifting Your Management
Paradigm
A paradigm is the frame of
reference through which you look at the world and describe nature. As a
manager, it is not enough that you change your attitude in order to make
dramatic change. You have to change how you see the organization. You
have to change how you think about others.
Four Basic Management
Paradigms
1.
The Scientific Management
Paradigm.
Assumes that man is an economic being primarily motivated by his
quest for economic security. If you use this paradigm you are an
authoritarian who reward your people when they do your bidding and
punish them for failing to do so. Your operating principle here is
fairness.
2.
The Human Relations
Paradigm.
Assumes that man is a socioeconomic being, with both economic and
social needs. If you use this paradigm, you treat your people not only
with fairness, but also with kindness and decency. However, you are
still an authoritarian because you still believe you know what's best
for them and that they should do what you tell them to do. Your
operating principle here is kindness.
3.
The Human Resource Paradigm.
Assumes that man is also a thinking being - a psychological being
who want to make meaningful contributions. If you use this paradigm you
delegate tasks to people because you want to use their skills and
creativity for the good of the organization. Your operating principle
here is efficiency.
4.
The Principle-Centred
Leadership (PCL) Paradigm.
Sees people in their entirety - as economic, social, psychological
and spiritual beings who need meaning in their lives and who want to
make a meaningful difference. If you use this paradigm you provide your
people with lofty causes and noble purposes. You shift the centre of
power from you and spread it throughout the organization in order to
empower your people. Your operating principle here is meaning.
The first three paradigms
are flawed. It is only the Principle-Centred Leadership Paradigm that
can lead to true personal and organizational effectiveness.
The Principle-Centred
Leadership (Pcl) Paradigm
The PCL Components: One P
and Eight S's
The PCL paradigm has nine
components:
1.
People. The PCL paradigm recognizes how
important people are to all levels of the organization.
2.
Self. In initiating change, start with
yourself before trying to influence others.
3.
Style. This refers to the empowerment style
of management, which creates more innovation, initiative and commitment.
4.
Skills. These should be developed through
training and education.
5.
Shared vision and principles. The best way
to achieve this is by creating a mission statement - a living
constitution - that is the product of input from all levels of the
organization and that embodies deeply held values.
6.
Structure. Should be aligned with the
mission statement.
7.
Systems. Six systems are common to most
organizations: an information system, a compensation system, training
and development system, a recruiting and selecting system, a job design
system and a communication system. These should all be aligned with the
mission statement.
8.
Strategy. Should be aligned with the
professed mission, the available resources and with market conditions.
9.
Streams. The environment in which you
operate.
Four Characteristics of
the PCL Paradigm
1.
It's holistic. It is an open system that
includes everything in the stream, including the organizational
environment, the industry, and the wider society. It also treats the
organization as one indivisible whole and as a complete system.
2.
It's ecological. Because it's holistic, it
is like an ecosystem wherein everything is related with everything else.
It is organic, and thus an initiative in one part affects the entire
system.
3.
It's developmental. Everything is done step
by step; everything follows a process.
4.
It's based on proactive people, not
inanimate things, plants and animals. The human resource is not
expendable because it is viewed as essential to the organization. The
people are not treated as inanimate assets that must be used.
Six Conditions of
Empowerment
How exactly do you empower
your people? First you have to examine what basic assumptions you have
about them, and about human nature in general. Then, make sure they have
the proper:
1.
Skills -
What the people can do. They will need communication, planning and
organization, and synergistic problem-solving skills.
2.
Character -
W hat the people are.
They will need to have integrity, maturity and an abundance mentality.
You will need to make
deposits in their emotional bank accounts and to build trust.
Next, spot the areas where
the organizational needs and goals overlap or are in harmony with the
needs, goals and capabilities of individuals. Then:
1.
Set up a
win-win agreement
with them, based on these commonalities. To do this you should
work together to:
Step One: Specify desired
results.
Step Two: Set some
guidelines.
Step Three: Identify
available resources.
Step Four: Define
accountability.
Step Five: Determine the
consequences.
1.
Self-supervision
- Let the people supervise themselves based on that agreement.
2.
Support the people by providing
helpful organizational structure and systems
within which self-directing, self-controlling individuals could
work toward fulfilling the terms of the agreement.
3.
Accountability -
Make your people accountable for their responsibilities by letting
them evaluate themselves against the criteria specified in the win-win
agreement.
Step Four: Alignment at
the Organizational Level
Once you properly manage
your people by motivating them and building an atmosphere of trust, the
next step is to ensure that their actions and decisions are aligned with
the organization's vision and mission.
Writing Your Own
Constitution
Step One:
Expand perspective. This
usually happens naturally when we encounter adversity or suffering, but
it can be induced through planned experiences such as company gatherings
and the like, during which you can ask people about their views.
Step Two:
Clarify values. This
involves assigning someone to draft and write the constitution, then to
present it to the members of the organization for approval. This is the
phase where the constitution gets refined.
Step Three:
Test it against
yourself. Take the more or less final draft of the constitution and ask
yourself: "Is this in harmony with my values? Does it inspire and
motivate me? Does it capture the heart and soul of the company? Does it
represent the best within the organization?" Try to ascertain how much
of the values of the organization and of the people in it overlap. The
greater the overlap, the better it is.
Step Four:
Test yourself against
it. This time, try applying the constitution by applying it to your
policies, programs, strategies, structure and systems. See if these
could function in harmony with the constitution. You should keep
amending your constitution based on your findings during this testing
phase.
Updating Your
Constitution
As your perspective and
values change, so too should your constitution. To make sure your
constitution is always up-to-date, ask yourself the following questions
at regular intervals:
-
Is my mission
statement based on proven principles that I currently believe in?
-
Do I feel this
represents the best within me?
-
Do I feel direction,
purpose, challenge, and motivation when I review this statement?
-
Am I aware of the
strategies and skills that will help me accomplish what I have
written?
-
What do I need to do
now to be where I want to be tomorrow?
The Universal Mission
Statement
The universal mission
statement is intended to serve leaders of organizations as an expression
of their vision and sense of stewardship. It attempts to encompass, in
one brief sentence, the core values of the organization. It creates a
context that gives meaning, direction, and coherence to everything else.
Your mission statement
should be short and simple but comprehensive, so that it encompasses the
organization's vision yet it is simple enough for people to remember and
memorize. It should not replace your goals, but rather should direct
those goals.
The universal mission
statement can apply to all organizations, and you can use it while you
are developing your own mission statement. It is comprised of twelve
words:
To Improve the Economic
Well-Being and Quality of Life of All Stakeholders.
The universal mission
statement addresses the economic well-being of the stakeholders because
this is really the goal of most business organizations - to serve
economic purposes and to create a means of livelihood for its members.
The statement also
addresses quality of life because the organization should not only
provide a mere source of livelihood. Rather, the corporation should also
be concerned with the overall quality of life of stakeholders. Of
course, it should be stressed that an organization's primary
responsibility is to enhance the quality of work life. After all, there
are other institutions (e.g. schools, family, churches, etc.) that are
better equipped to deal with the private life. It is also important to
remember that the quality of life has five dimensions: acceptance and
love; challenge and growth; purpose and meaning; fairness and
opportunity; and life balance.
Lastly, the universal
mission statement includes all stakeholders, which includes everyone who
will suffer if the enterprise fails. This includes the owners,
shareholders, employees, suppliers, consumers, distributors, dealers and
other people in the community.
Writing an effective
constitution and mission statement, and ensuring that they remain
current and relevant to all members of the organization, ensures that
your system and structures are aligned with your core principles and
values - an essential ingredient to effective principle-centred
leadership.
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