Response: Stephen Covey's '7 Habits of Highly Effective People'

This essay is a response paper analyzing Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It discusses Covey's insights on personal effectiveness, leadership, and human relations, agreeing with his emphasis on proactive behavior, self-awareness, and the importance of aligning personal values with actions. The author reflects on how Covey's principles can be applied to improve personal and professional life, particularly in areas such as goal setting, relationship building, and communication. While largely agreeing with Covey's ideas, the essay also raises some points of disagreement, suggesting a need for a more holistic view that considers external factors beyond personality. The author concludes by outlining specific plans to implement Covey's principles to enhance their own effectiveness and success. Desklib is a great platform to find such solved assignments and past papers.

Running head: RESPONSE PAPER 1
Response Paper: Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."
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Response Paper: Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."
Introduction
Described as the American Socrates, Stephen Covey is a mentor on improving personal
effectiveness and addresses key issues such as values, relationships, family and communicating.
The article in context provides a key understanding of the management and organizational
aspects and how individuals can impact others and principles that form a solid foundation for
effective communication. Covey (1989) argued that the principles of vision, leadership and
human relations are critical for business leaders today since they influence success. He argued
that effective performance or achieving the desired performance levels is based on the ability of
the leaders to encourage meaningful contribution and shaping inspirational and supportive
leadership. Besides the ability to combine the strengths of the people is achieved through
positive teamwork which promotes both personal and organizational development. Stephen
Covey (1989) demonstrates key skills in leadership and presents key aspects which I believe are
valuable in shaping personal and professional life making his works ideal in promoting effective
development primarily within organizational settings as well as inspiring others.
Agreement and Opinion
From a personal perspective, I believe that Stephen Covey's book "7 habits of highly
effective people," shares critical insights on habits that promote success in personal and
professional life. The author's argument on how individual perceptions shape their view of the
world and success is justified and demonstrates the positive role of shaping the individual
perception positively in order to be effective and successful in all undertakings. The justification
for this book is based on the studies done on the concept of success over the years which presents
the notion that people define success differently. I believe Covey's argument is critical since how

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one sees the world or a given situation influences the response adopted. In this regard, achieving
a high degree of success is based on positively shaping the inner need for developing personal
effectiveness and relationships with others. The book provides different ideas of interests to me
and my professional experience such as the need to positively shape my perception or attitudes in
life or specific situations in order to improve my situation in life (Covey, 1989).
The personality ethic is a critical aspect which is presented by Covey (1989) and I agree
with his argument that personality, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as public image, tend to
impact success. Like Covey suggests, the foundation of success has changed from the traditional
aspects such as integrity, humility, and courage to the personality aspects such as attitudes and
behaviors. I agree with Covey's argument that the ability to develop positive attitude and
behaviors towards key situations in life influences the response adopted. In this regard, positive
perception or attitude can enhance the chances of motivating success over time. Covey's (1989)
idea of the personality ethic as the source of solutions and ingredient to success relies on the idea
that there exit deeper values which motivates performance and success in personal and
professional life. I believe the principles shared by Covey are critical in understanding how
shaping our image can help shape our character and ability to hand problems in life.
Another key aspect and idea from the book that has interest to me and my professional
life is the way one views a problem. According to Covey (1989), the way we see the problem is
the problem. This argument presents the notion that there is a need for paradigm shift in order to
achieve true change. I believe the seven habits presented by the author are critical in supporting
individual success and promoting continuous growth and improvement to achieve the desired
results. Success is based on the ability to achieve the paradigm shift rather than just altering the
attitudes and behaviors. As such, Covey's (1989) arguments are valuable in changing my overall

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perception and response to problems in life since changing the perception enhances the ability to
respond effectively. The justification for this argument is centered on the idea that individual
motivation can result from different factors such as the personal characteristics among other
extern aspects. The idea of being proactive is also interesting since it relates to different aspects
of my professional life and empowers me to respond to various situations in the workplace as
well as establishing social relations that motivate performance. The proactive habit enhances the
chances of taking responsibility for individual choices as well as control the individual
effectiveness. This argument also provides key insights into the negative role of adopting a
reactive response approach to different problems faced in life as well as within the workplace. I
agree with Covey (1989) that shaping my response approach to a more reactive approach can
help in effectively responding to problems based on the existing conditions as well as learning
from such situations.
Covey (1989) also provides key elements of the personal ethics of personality growth,
communication skill and education as well as positive thinking which I agree that there are
essential for success. However, I believe the ability to use these elements varies between human
beings which accounts for the difference in the success levels and ability to respond to success
and problems or complex situations in life. Additionally, Covey points out human relations as
critical in shaping personality ethics which I believe is critical in motivating the individual
performance and response to challenges experienced in the personal and professional life.
Human relations enhances the individual persistence and control to a given stimulus or situation
based on the idea that the circle of influence tends to affect the proactive nature of human beings.
A review of Covey's (1989) book also demonstrates that he emphasizes the value of self-
awareness as the basis for empowering individuals to shape their lives rather than living based on

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preferences of others or standards. I believe this is a core aspect that can shape positive
performance in the personal and professional life of any individual. Self-awareness enhances the
ability of an individual to recognize their weaknesses, strengths as well as values and goal setting
which promotes success in life. The ability to identify our values or assert our personal values is
critical for optimizing efficiency and success in life. Besides, self-awareness promotes the
chances of making effective decisions in life as well as achieving a principle-centered behavior.
Covey's idea of discipline as the basis for achieving our values and understanding key issues or
priorities is critical and justified since discipline influences individual actions and commitment to
set values or goals. In this regard, self-discipline is critical for effective people to ensure
individuals act based on their values rather than desires or impulses to ensure success in life.
Covey's (1989) book shares critical insights and issues that shape individual success in
life and how people can be successful. His arguments are centered on real-life issues and
promote the chances of shaping individual character and behaviors. Covey's book postulates that
childhood experience tends to shape the individual character and personality as well as the
overall life of human beings. I believe this argument is critical and resonates with different
people. This presents the notion that parents have an opportunity to shape their children's later
life, character, and personality through effective childhood upbringing. Covey's argument
presents the idea that individuals have the ability to shape their success or failure in life-based on
their actions or childhood upbringing. The arguments presented are critical in enhancing the
individual ability to positively shape the personal and professional life by scheduling one's
priorities rather than prioritizing what's on your schedule. This presents the notion that
preventing a crisis or negative situations from happening is based on learning how to respond to

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issues through effective personnel management approaches such as long-term planning,
preparation and relationship building among others.
Like Covey, I believe effective interdependent relationships are critical to achieving
mutual benefit between the parties involved. Besides, they offer key insights into the underlying
issues that motivate individual performance such as consideration and courage. This presents the
notion that personal and professional success in life can also be shaped by relationships with
others and how one responds to the issues within relationships. Achieving a win-win situation
within relationships, its critical for individuals to focus on results rather than the problem. This
aspect offers a key understanding of the diversity in how people define success in life or fail to
succeed. I believe a majority of aspects presented by Covey's book on effective people identify
key issues that limit the individual ability to succeed and how to respond to the issues.
Covey (1989) demonstrates key concerns on personality as the basis for influencing
individual response to situations such as the awareness of self-control and the courage and
strength to accept responsibility. His argument on how making and keeping commitments to
ourselves is critical to success is justified and I believe it influences how individuals set goals
and work towards achieving the goals. Keeping commitments promotes the chances of
developing the basic habits of effectiveness. Like Covey, I agree that the individual knowledge,
skill, and desires are within our control; however, there is need to ensure an effective balance of
the three aspects. Additionally, building skills of empathic listening are critical in inspiring
openness and trust which also significantly promotes success in both personal and professional
life.

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Aspects of Disagreement
While its evident that Covey's book has provided critical insights into the aspects that
enhance individual effectiveness and success in life, he identifies some issues which I don't agree
with and believe requires better support to shape success. For example, the aspect of building
empathic listening on the base of character as the basis for supporting trust and openness is
dependent on other factors such as the individual personality and ability to communicate. In this
regard, I believe Covey should have related empathic listening with the communication process
to demonstrate success in his arguments. Success in personal and professional life is based on an
interplay of different factors besides the personality aspect as defined by Covey. I believe it
would be valuable for Covey's argument to demonstrate a link between the key factors that shape
individual effectiveness and success in life rather than focusing on the personality aspect alone.
The personality aspect represents the internal issues that influence personal and professional life.
However, there exists external aspect such as the environment or the backgrounds which tend to
impact the individual commitment to the set goals and objectives in life.
Plans to Change
Having studied the book, I believe it offers critical insights into different ways I can
achieve success in personal and professional life. The insights gained from the book can help me
in improving my personality and effectively balancing my self-awareness, empathic listening and
relationships. I will work on improving this skills in order to enhance my chances of success as
well as response to problems or challenging situations in life. Besides, building goals and values
and commitment towards achieving them have been identified as critical aspects that influence
success. In this regard, I feel that by changing this aspect I will gain improved abilities to
succeed in my roles in both personal and professional life primarily the commitment to my goals.

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I also believe that I can significantly gain by improving my relationship with others since it has
been identified as critical in influencing success and ability to achieve set goals or objectives. In
this regard, I will focus on establishing relationships that are based on win-win situations to
enhance success in life.
Conclusion
Covey's books provide a key understanding of the personal ethics as the basis for
individual success in both personal and professional life. The book provides critical insights into
how people achieve a different degree of success while others experience challenges in life. By
developing personal effectiveness and healthy relationship with others Covey believes that
individuals have higher chances of success. Additionally, I share similar perspective with most
of the aspects presented by Covey such as the impact of individual perceptions on problems or
challenges in life and how one responds. I believe shaping perceptions positively can help in
effectively responding to challenging situations in life. Similarly, demonstrating a balance of
personality, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as public image one, can achieve success since the
aspects serve as a core foundation of success in modern times.

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References
Covey, S. R (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Fireside
personality dimensions: A replication among English adults. Journal of Genetic
Psychology, 162, 119-123.