Interview with Steven Covey on Spiritual-Based Leadership

For Steven Covey, famed author and consultant, spirituality deals with 3 dimensions: the whole person, universal principles that are timeless, and peace of conscience. This 2006 interview relates how he brought those dimensions into every aspect of his leadership.

By William C. Miller and Debra R. Miller

 

Editor’s Note:

Stephen Covey dedicated his life to teaching principle-centered living and leadership to build both healthy and successful families and organizations. Dr. Covey is the author of many highly acclaimed books, including the international bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has been called the #1 Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century and one of the top-ten most influential management books ever. It has sold more than 15 million copies in 38 languages throughout the world.

This interview was conducted by the Global Dharma Center in June 2006. Dr. Covey passed away in 2012 at the age of 79, from medical complications after a bicycle accident.

Spiritual View of Life

To me spirituality is three things:

First of all, you are dealing with the whole person. That includes the person’s spirit or soul. You cannot separate their body or their mind or their heart from their spirit, because they are all so inter-related, and there is a synergistic relationship between all these four dimensions of our nature. Any attempt to compartmentalise will reduce that synergistic effect and it will have negative repercussions on your body, your mind, your heart, your emotions, your thinking, and so forth.

Another dimension would be that you are dealing with those principles that are universal and timeless.

Thirdly, spirituality deals with peace of conscience. Obeying or following your conscience, means that you are true to that which you have internalised as being right and this gives you tremendous tranquility and courage.

When I am in India, I always use the “Namaste” greeting, saluting the God within you. I really do believe that we are all children of God, and I often acknowledge that God is the source of the principles and the emperor of all the credit and glory. I say to those who are not of this belief, “That’s fine, I respect you as well, I just want you to know that personally I believe that the source of all the principles that give your life its integrity, and its power and its meaning, all of them link up to the Divine.”

Spiritual Theme

One of my mottoes serves as a powerful spiritual theme for me: “Live life in crescendo.” In other words, the most important work you’ll ever do is still ahead of you.

Another such spiritual theme for me would be: “Educate and obey your conscience.” Educating as I speak of it here involves getting into the sacred literature of all the great traditions that have had enduring value and then consciously living true to what you have learned. The more you live true to it, the stronger your conscience becomes. A constant effort is required to stay on track with such stewardship.

Distinction Between Spirituality and Religion

I make a real conscientious effort in my leadership, writing, and speaking not to refer to any one particular religion, but only to deal with that which is universal. Although I am an active member of the Mormon Church I don’t get any Mormon theology snuck into it in some secret way. I have no hidden agenda. I am often asked the question, “How much has your Mormonism influenced your view”, and I say, “It has influenced me tremendously, but all that we are dealing with here are principles that are universal and timeless.” And then I would say, “If you disagree with me, just tell me which principles you believe in – and do you live them?”

Spiritual Purpose, Principles, and Values

I think that our work was born with us, and that it is a sacred stewardship to find and fulfill our work, our duties.

I know through my own direct work with different organisations that in many cases I have inspired and influenced people to change the cultures they live in. People without any formal authority at all and who only have moral authority, which means that they are spiritually minded and live by principles, have been inspired and enabled to change their cultures.

My basic approach to helping people to develop awareness as to spiritual principles is to get them to think in terms of their mission and vision and the values that they want to put into their life, and then how to set up an information and accountability system to get them institutionalised. This applies to both individuals and to organisations.

Over the years I have discovered that when you take a family approach, it instantly helps people to develop that awareness. Everyone loves a family and even if they have had a bad family in their upbringing, they still care about the family as an institution, and, in particular, most care about their own family.

Consciously Growing Spiritually

The practice of reading scriptures every day helps me to become more integrated in my thinking, to be more inclusive and expansive.

First Story – Practicing universal principles

I just finished going through four countries in Africa, three countries in the Middle East, India, and Sri Lanka, with the effort to bring together principles that are universal and timeless. I taught from Hinduism, I taught from Islam, I taught from Christianity. I just did a satellite interview to China explaining what this material can do for a Confucian nation. I teach the exact same principles no matter where I am and show that there is a universal character to these principles. They are metaphysical, they transcend the outside physical world, and they guide all behaviour, all thinking, and many of them are built into assumptions that people make about nature and life.

If controversies arise or if people start feeling that I am being too religious, I say, “Let’s just stick with those principles that we all agree on. Let’s see if we can follow the principles of fairness, kindness, respect, the development and use of peoples’ talents, having meaningful work, and living with integrity. Let’s see if we can agree upon these, let’s go to our hearts and our souls and live with integrity.” That’s what I am teaching.

Certainly principles have a moral and spiritual foundation, but no religion has a patent on them. They are not unique to any religion. They are universal and timeless. I have seen in organisations throughout the world that when there is a spirit of openness and synergy, all the values an individual organisation works with are essentially identical to those of other organisations. Yes, there are different practices, and the labels – the words used to define and describe the particular values may be different – but what is being said is essentially the same. It all deals with meaning and integrity.

The easiest way to see this is to look at the mission statements that have been produced. Although the organisations, including the leadership that developed the statements, may not at a given moment be living up to what these statements say, the statements themselves are basically saying the same things.

So if people have certain cultural definitions of what these universal principles are, and of what their values are, I say to them, “I’ll just go with yours.” The key is to live the values and to be true to the principles that underlie them, to have total integrity – to be integrated around principles – not around people or organisations. Integrity is the highest form of loyalty – and over time it produces loyalty. It’s far better to be trusted than to be liked.

To be a spiritual-based leader is to have these universal principles integrated in your inner life and to be true to them in your actions, even when it’s dark – when you have power over people and can do things and not be found out. When you have that integrity, then you have peace of conscience.

Second Story – Peace of conscience

Peace of conscience is much greater than peace of mind. Peace of mind is wonderful, too, but that’s more a function of events, like you’ve paid your bills, you made the plane on time, and so forth. Conscience means that you are truly true to that which you have internalised as being right and that gives you tremendous courage. Because then you can be strong with a loving spirit.

You don’t have the ability to be courageous without deep respect and compassion for others. Neither do you experience the opposite – feeling compassionate and kind, and then capitulate on being courageous. Following your conscience is a long term approach to win-win; even though all your decisions may not be popular, you don’t ever violate the relationship of win-win towards people.

I think peace of conscience also recognises such a thing as evil. You would go for “no deal” with evil; you would have no real partnership with it. On the other hand, I find that most people see evil in others because they have not truly listened to them. I recently had the opportunity to have a good visit with Nelson Mandela. He was talking about how he saw the goodness in his guards when he was in the Robin Island Prison for six years. He had glimpses of this goodness, and he kept that awareness with him all the time he was in prison. It added to his moral authority which enabled him eventually to leverage towards formal authority as the first president of the new South Africa.

Third Story – Spiritual intention in leadership

I find that spiritual intention drives perception, which drives behaviour, which then drives results. If you actually get a person to think in terms of their legacy, what they are trying to really do in the long run to bless people’s lives, it gets them immediately into a spiritual frame of mind. I use this approach all the time in my leadership – and in training people to think in terms of supra-ordinate goals.

Let me give you an example. I was working with a large college in Ontario, Canada. They really had a terrible culture; it was characterised by turfism and fighting and interdepartmental resistances, with everyone looking out for themselves, protecting their own situation, silo thinking, and all that kind of stuff. I worked with them over a period of a year to develop a mission statement that would be supra-ordinate. By this I mean larger than one’s self, larger than one’s own institution.

It took them about two years before there was broad agreement, and eventually what happened was that they developed a mission statement to become the yardstick educational institution for all of the state of Ontario – the institution others could measure themselves against. When they really bought into that intention to leave a legacy, the littleness of their souls completely submerged, and the magnanimity of soul exploded inside them.

I have these eye-opening experiences almost on a daily basis, both in my own leadership work at FranklinCovey and in my work helping leaders of other organisations.

Purpose of Business

Spiritual-based leaders respect others and are guided by the fundamental ethic: service to others comes before servings one’s self. From an existential perspective, the raison d’être of organisations is to serve human needs. Really, there is no other reason for their existence. Individuals and organisations grow when they give themselves to others. Relationships improve when there is a focus on serving the other, be it at the level of the individual, the family, the organisation, the community, the society, or all of humanity. The phrase so eloquently developed by Greenleaf sums this up: servant leadership.

In short: The purpose of business organisations is to serve human needs. Period!

Importance and Priority of Financial and Productivity Goals

Organisations tend to think more in terms of secondary success, in terms of finances, price-earnings ratios, shareholder value and things like that. It is a fine thing to have both primary and secondary success, because if you don’t have an economic engine you just can’t keep your growth going. But organisations are not sustainable without primary success – without contributing to others, without moral authority. And this certainly applies in particular to their leaders.

Good organisations have integrity and are known for it with their suppliers, with their customers and with their own people. They consciously attempt to live the principles they preach. Almost all organisations have beautiful mission statements, but most of them are PR-statements. They have not been integrated into the organisation. Such organisations rationalise unethical behaviour in the name of, “the end justifies the means”, where really “end” and “means” are inseparable, the ends pre-exist in the means.

Continued Growth as a Spiritual-Based Leader

To become a spiritual-based leader, you have to teach the principle of service, to apply it, to live it, and then to be accountable to those you serve. Service can start at the very local level, but real stewardship requires expanding one’s vision to include all of the world. I have found that for me to continue to grow in accord with these principles, it really helps me to ponder the scriptures every morning and every night.

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This case story is excerpted from an interview with Stephen Covey conducted by Dr. Peter Pruzan and Kirsten Pruzan Mikkelsen in 2006 and originally published by the Global Dharma Center as part of its research on Spiritual Based Leadership. You can view the full interview of Stephen Covey and 3 dozen other executives at: https://globaldharma.org/sbl-knowledgebase1volumes.htm