Leadership and Responsibility: Analyzing Covey's 7 Habits Principles

This essay delves into the principles of leadership and responsibility, drawing upon Stephen Covey's 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.' The author provides a personal reflection on the application of these habits, emphasizing the importance of independence, proactive behavior, and effective interpersonal communication. The essay highlights key concepts such as having a clear future perspective, prioritizing tasks, embracing interdependence and the win-win policy, understanding others' perspectives, fostering synergy, and pursuing continuous personal improvement. The author believes that these principles are highly relevant and adaptable in modern times. The essay underscores the significance of ethical behavior, the ability to adapt to changes, and the value of teamwork and conflict resolution. Ultimately, the essay encourages readers to adopt and modify Covey's principles to achieve both personal and professional success, emphasizing the importance of self-assessment and commitment.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY
Leadership and Responsibilities
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey is one of the popular
books in the category of self-help, which was published in the year 1988. With record sales of
over 10 million copies, the book is one of the best selling of its domain. The universal ideas of
effectiveness principal that have been mentioned within the book can be adopted by people under
all types of profession that will help them to seek maximum achievable success in all respective
fields. The purpose of the current study is to provide my own personal experience about the ideas
that has been mentioned by the authors about the principles of effectives. I will also mention
about the principles of the book that has been effective in my life since I became aware about the
relevant facts related to the book.
The central idea of the book revolves around the principles that the path to achieve
success in the professional life by gaining effectiveness will remain same throughout all ages.
The idea of true north principal is highly effective according to me is due to the fact that it help
to focus upon the ways to improve the ethical aspects of one’s individual character. The morality
of an individual’s character has a strong influence in the overall success that is obtained in the
professional career. Hence, I believe it is highly critical to modify the elements of one’s
character according to the effective principals that has been mentioned within the book of Covey.
With rapid changes that have been occurring in the fast moving world of modern days, people
across all types of professions are commonly adopting unethical ways to achieve success. This I
believe is mainly due to the lack of ability to endure some objective for longer period. The main
objective of the book is to raise resolve the issues that are encountered by the society due to all

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types of unethical principals that are adopted to achieve success at individual level. The book
have strongly focused upon the ideas related to the paradigm shift, which can help to overcome
the barriers related to individual level of barriers to get the effective level of information needed
to improve the professional career.
The book of at the concept of Seven Habits that I believe can be adopted by all successful
professional Corporate in order to make improvements in personal career. The primary habit that
is mentioned within the book is about being independence, which will provide us the opportunity
to gain the ability of self mastery. Being proactive is a primary element offering independence.
As we are being more proactive, it is possible to overcome the challenges from beforehand. One
of the essential characters that are needed to improve upon the prospect of an individual’s
corporate life is to have effective skill of interpersonal communication. A proactive individual
will also be eager to improve upon their interpersonal skill of communication that can help them
to overcome all future challenges. It is also possible to improve over individual skills that are
needed to stay advance within the workplace.
Second most important element or habit that has been mentioned in the book is to have a
clear idea about the future perspective. An individual needs to have a clear idea about what they
want in the future career. This I believe will help them to plan better in the present. As an
individual is constantly, able to review they are mission in personal and professional level it can
be possible for them to make necessary change in the character and personal habits. The
individual can also decide upon the path they want to follow depending upon their strengths and
weakness that can help them to achieve success in personal and professional life.

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The third habit of the book is about putting priorities ahead. As an individual have to deal with
several categories of tasks and objective in personal and professional life, I do believe that it is
highly recommended to priorities the work according to the urgency and importance level. This
habit is more important in the context of the modern days is due to the fact that I believe it gives
the ability of an individual to set importance to each of their work. As an individual is able to
accomplish urgent and important task in prior basis, it is possible for them to easily achieve
success in short period of time.
The next element of the book is about interdependence. As an individual is performing
within the society, it is important for them to have the habit to work in coordination with the
society. In this context, the fourth habit that has been mentioned in the book is about win-win
policy. As a person is able to respect personal objective of other individual, it is possible for
them to work in coordination that help to develop symbiotic relationship. I do strongly believe
that this is more important in the context of the modern day due to the fact that it is one of the
effective ways to resolve all types of conflict. This habit can also help to improve upon the
communication and interaction level of an individual. It is also possible for an individual the
support other people of the society during the time of crisis and thereby helps them to deal with
all types of challenging situation. As harmony between the people of the society is increased, it is
possible to achieve team success. One of the major advantages of the win-win type situation is
due to the fact that there is no loss at individual level during the time of crisis. In order to achieve
such situation it is important to have high level of courage at individual level. Hence, as we
practice this habit it is possible for us to achieve courage and also have the ability to take risk
and learn new things from other people in the society. This can help to deal with all major type
of issues that are related with social isolation of an individual due to individual incapability. A

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person is also able to establish effective corporate relationship with organizational leader, which
help them to improve about their range of influence. This situation can also help to resolve all
kind of ethical issues that are raised due to unhealthy competitive environment within the society
and various levels of an organization.
The fifth habit that has been mentioned in the following context is about the ability of an
individual to understand other’s perspective. The current days I do believe one of the major
issues in the society is due to the fact that everyone is busy expressing out their own opinion and
hence no one gets the opportunity to understand the opinion of suggestions provided by other
members. As we focus upon understanding the opinion of other, it will help us to evaluate the
perspective in context of a given situation. The empathetic learning ability is highly crucial due
to the fact that it can help to resolve all types of conflict that occurs at various interpersonal
levels. As we develop the habit of understanding others opinion, we can develop the learning and
listening skill which is highly crucial in context of gaining from other’s experience. I must also
highlight up on the fact that as we inherit the skill of listening to others voice, it will help to deal
with that trust issue. It is important to mention that if an individual is able to trust all other people
in the society and colleagues in an organization, they will be able to improve upon the team
working capability. If you are able to understand the perspective of other people, it is quite
obvious that we can expect to express our viewpoint in front of other individual.
The following 6th habit in this context is the ability to synergize. This habit helps us to
develop positive environment within the team. +As we are able to understand the perspective of
other people, it is possible to have the opportunity to create synergize environment. This I
believe is essential due to the fact that it can help to unlock hidden potential within an individual
that is highly crucial and crisis situation. I also believe that this habit can help to create

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alternative opportunity that is highly crucial in context of bringing out innovative ideas. As an
individual explore out areas, which are beyond their individual comfort level, it is possible for
them to understand the outlook of the society and improve upon their skills accordingly, which
help them to capture a better position and reach out to their objectives.
Diversity is one of the common elements in the current day society. With the habit of synergy, it
is possible to resolve all type of diversity issues that occurs due to difference in individual
cultural background.
The seventh habit that has been mentioned in the book is about continuous personal
improvement. The author has mentioned about sharpening of saw, which is aimed to improve
over the balance and maintain long term sustainability in the Complex environment of today's
society. One of the essential elements of this habit is due to the fact that it helps to evaluate the
potential of the available resources. Thereby it is possible to make effective use of the resources
and ensure nothing gets wasted. In order to improve upon our personal skill in task
accomplishment it is essential to develop diverse type of habits. There are various dimensions of
personal behavior which includes physical, mental, spiritual and social habits. As an individual is
able to develop all elements of personal behavior, it is possible for them to develop all round
skills. It can also help to ensure healthy well being at physical and mental level. There is also the
dimension of social economical perspective that helps us to understand the viewpoint of other
people at emotional level. With effective mental dimension, it is possible to improve our
individual thinking capability.
In the concluding note, it can be a said that One the beautiful aspects of the seven habit
that has been mentioned is I believe that improvement in one habit can automatically help to

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focus upon all other habits. As we are able to practice and follow the guidelines of The Seven
Habits, it is possible for us to evaluate our own performance level in context of the society. It
also provides us the opportunity to improve upon their weakness and develop and utilize the
strengths. Each dimension of the 7 habits can help us to achieve each element of individual
target. As we fail to achieve our objective, it is possible to explore all the possible reasons
failure. Practicing the 7 habits can also help to overcome all forms of weakness at various levels.
However, it is essential to ensure that for implementing the seven habits we make a strong
commitment to our self about following a strict protocol in every aspects of daily life. The
elements of The Seven Habits also provide us the opportunity to self assess our performance.
I personally to strongly agree upon all the elements of Seven Habits that have been
mentioned by the author in the book. In spite of the argument and critic about the fact that the
protocols that have been mentioned so many years back during the time of publishing of the
book, is not applicable in context of the modern day, I do believe that modifying the guidelines
of the 7 habits depending upon the situation can still be Highly Effective. Personally, I do have a
strong fascination about maintaining all the habits that have been highlighted in the book. It is
also easy to follow the protocol of every habit that the fact that the author has been capable
enough represents the same in a very practical way. As we are able to understand the importance
of The Seven Habits, it is possible to improve upon our individual skills from every dimension.