Covey, Stephen

An internationally respected authority on leadership and organization, Stephen R. Covey (1932–) has dedicated his life to principle-centered living and principlecentered leadership. As founder of the Institute for [Page 230]Principle-Centered Leadership, a nonprofit research group dedicated to improving the quality of community life, Covey has transformed the power of principles and natural laws that guide human and organizational effectiveness. With more than 200 members, his international firm, The Covey Leadership Center, empowers professionals and organizations to implement principlecentered leadership to increase productivity, sales, and communications. Covey is also the cofounder and the vice chairman of the FranklinCovey Company, a leading professional services firm. His collective body of work has greatly influenced a generation of educational leaders and scholars.

Covey did his undergraduate work at the University of Utah and received an MBA from Harvard. Subsequently, he earned a doctorate at Brigham Young University, where he served as professor of business management and organization, assistant to the president, and director of university relations. Throughout his career, he has received multiple honorary doctoral degrees and has been the recipient of the Thomas More College Medallion for continuing service to humanity. In 1994, he was named the International Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 1996, he received the National Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. He was awarded the International Man of Peace Award in 1998, and Time magazine named Covey one of the 25 most influential Americans.

Covey's first two books, Spiritual Roots of Human Relations (1975) and Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People (1984), are geared more toward self-improvement than corporate management and espouse a religious perspective of human effectiveness and interaction. His most popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), was a New York Times number-one best seller. In 2002, Forbes rated this book as one of the top-10 most influential management books, and Chief Executive Magazine rated the book as one of the two most influential business books of the twentieth century. While The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was designed for self-improvement, the book looks at ways people and organizations use personality-based solutions, “social Band-Aids,” to solve problems. Acknowledging the importance of the personality ethic, Covey encourages people to look deeper and to emphasize the character ethic. The seven habits espoused in the book are as follows: Be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergize; and sharpen the saw. Covey encourages readers to understand that the seven habits are not quick fixes and that the habits may take time to acquire and institutionalize in a meaningful manner. Several of Covey's later publications, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families (1997), Quotes and Quips: Insights on Living the 7 Habits (1998), and Living the 7 Habits: Stories of Courage and Inspiration (1999), were built on the framework contained in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Other Covey publications include The Divine Center (1988), Principle-Centered Leadership (1991), First Things First (1994), and The Nature of Leadership (1998).

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