Author: acte

I recall back in 1990’s reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) and consecutively completing a Franklin Covey Planning workshop. I had felt that I was “Covey Ready” to begin my journey into educational leadership. Stephen Covey taught us to be more effective in accomplishing our goals by aligning ourselves to the principles of “true north”. Covey described “Ture North” as a moral and ethical compass that is timeless and foundational to a leader’s character. With book and planner in hand and my brain busting with new information, I felt that I was well-prepared.

I am a regular podcast-“er” which is sometimes good and sometimes not-so-good. By that I mean that sometimes I get tired of pouring “knowledge” in and take the occasional daily break with “junk food” for the brain. This typically equivalates to the occasional stand-up comedy or pop-culture podcast.

I did take the time to listen to Stephen Covey podcast and other recommended leadership audio tutorials. When The 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens (Sean Covey, 1998) came out on the local bookshelves I purchased a class set for the entrepreneurship program I taught.

As you can tell I was a true advocate for the teachings of Stephen Covey.

When our Fellowship Group was given the charge of choosing a book about leadership I had originally chosen “The Life Code” by Dr. Phil McGraw. I appreciated this reading but felt I needed to find something that better aligned to my own journey into leadership. That is when I decided to do some googling which lead me back to over a dozen selections from Stephen R. Covey. After browsing through the various titles and summaries I landed on The 8^th Habit From Effectiveness and Greatness (2001).

Covey describes the 8^th Habit as:

“…the most important vision of all is to develop a sense of self, a sense of your own destiny, a sense of your unique mission and role in life, a sense of purpose and meaning”.

In alignment with this is one of my favorite Dr. Phil McGraw’s quotes:

“If you don’t know who you are and someone comes to tell you who you are, there’s nothing for them to compete with.”

It’s about knowing “self”. Knowing your mission, role, and a sense of destiny. The 8^th Habit is defining what that sense of self is. It’s also about defining your purpose and your meaning. Covey suggests that it takes profound personal reflection and asking deep questions to yourself.

In Chapter 5 Covey provides a visual interpretation on this 8^th element with a segmented circle with passion, vision and discipline circling the inside of portion of the word “Conscience”.

In regard to the conscience Covey quotes Gandhi’s teachings about what will destroy us:

• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Knowledge without character
• Commerce without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
• Politics without principle

These points are reflective of gifts that are falsely gained.

However, “…When people strive to live by their conscience, it produces integrity and peace of mind”, author J.H. Boetcker.

Covey explains what he calls “The 4 Roles’ model. In a five-year study called the “Evergreen Project” more than 200 well-established management practices as they were employed by over 160 companies over a 10 year period. They concluded that companies that outperformed their industry peers excelled at four primary management practices:

1. Strategy -Devise and maintain a clearly stated, focused strategy.
2. Execution – Develop and maintain flawless operation execution.
3. Culture – Develop and maintain a performance-oriented culture.
4. Structure – Build and maintain a fast, flexible, flat organization.

In summary the 8^th Habit is finding your voice and inspiring others to find theirs.

If I had to define my own voice, I would use the 4 components with each being titled the same as Covey’s.

1. Passion – my passion is to enrich the lives of others by providing information and guidance that can help direct their futures. To assist companies in workforce development strategies that can build communities, increase local pools of talent and therefore provide workers with an increased sense of being valued.
2. Vision – my vision is to develop industry tools that can assist educators and businesses to begin moving at a more aligned “speed” as well as being able to utilize a common language. I also believe that understanding one another’s barriers and opportunities will bring these two entities together and authentically understanding all needs of all stakeholders. My vision is also to develop a communication tool that can reach families and students to channel authentic and unbiased information to them that they can base their decision making on.
3. Discipline – the way that I demonstrate discipline in my life is both professional and personal. Personally, I see to it everyday that I have these daily habits:
   1. I drink a bottle of water every morning when I first get up.
   2. I do some form of a workout everyday for a minimum of 30 minutes.
   3. I eat a salad every day.
   4. I drink 4 bottles of water (min.) every day.
   5. I avoid sugar, red meat and pork.
   6. I speak with my son every day.
   7. I list 3 things I am grateful for every day.
   8. Point out the positive in others.
   9. Reach out to one friend a day to let them know I am here for them.
   10. Have a personal conversation with our creator.

Professionally I see to it everyday that I have these daily habits:

1. Respond to all emails and phone calls within a 24-hour period.
2. Acknowledge a co-worker/colleague for a job well done.

Professionally I am working to become more disciplined:

1. Read one professional development book a month.
2. Focus on one professional and one personal topic each month.
3. Decrease social media time.
4. Conscious – the heart of it all. I feel that the most important act that I can submerge myself in is to role model for others that are around me. Integrity and self-value come through the peace of mind that is attained through a “clean” conscious.

As my own personal role model Dr. Phil McGraw says:

“…Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.”

I am not certain that I am an authentic model of this theory, but I do feel that my morals, values and ethics do drive my decision making and hope that it will have an even bigger impact in my future as a professional leader.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have one profession my adult life and in the blink of an eye have to change my life course at the age of 43.  All of the uncertainty and worry about being able to provide for my family would be almost enough to consume a person.

This is exactly what happened with one of our post-secondary students, Brian Thomas.  Brian was a Market Manager/Butcher for 27 years before being hurt on the job. When listening to him, you can tell he enjoyed his craft and the amount of pride in how good he was at it.  It was his life.  It was the only skill he had to provide a livable wage to support his family.  Unfortunately, Brian’s workplace accident fractured several vertebrae.  The doctors were not able perform surgery on 2 of the vertebrae for fear of leaving him paralyzed.  This left him with a 20lb weight restriction meaning he could not work in any manual labor job.

Brain had to start from scratch in his professional life.  Having 3 children and a mortgage, Brian knew he had to work but was lost in what direction he should take.  He did some research and found the CADD program at Francis Tuttle Technology Center. I spoke with Brian several times throughout the enrollment process.  It was apparent that he was nervous and anxious to start the CADD program.

The first week after he started classes we touched base and he was enjoying the program, but was still apprehensive. The next week he came to me and said he thought that he had made a mistake.  He said that he was having trouble but was not a quitter so he was going to see it through.  The third week of Brian being enrolled I attended a CADD Advisory Board meeting.  The instructor shared information with the group about a project his students were working on.  He even showed one outstanding student’s project.  I immediately knew who the creator was because of conversations that Brain and I had about his hobbies.  I was proud that he had fought through his doubts and had given the program his all!  That afternoon I went to the CADD program to tell Brian “I told you so.”  Walking through the door of the classroom Brain looked at me and immediately came to me saying he needed to talk to me.  He ushered me to a table in the corner and said, “I cannot do this program.”  I was completely baffled!  He was having an anxiety attack and almost in tears.  He was talking about how he was never going to be able to keep up and he had definitely made a mistake enrolling into CADD.  I told him I was in a little bit of shock because I had just been at a meeting where his instructor used his project over students that had been enrolled in the program for a much longer time.  I shared some of the complements that the group was saying.  I then asked, “Your teacher thinks you’re doing fabulous, why do you not think you are?”  It turns out Brian had never used a computer except for the ten key to order products at his old profession.  Not only was he training for a new profession with the weight of the world on his shoulders but he was training on a device that he was unfamiliar with.   Brian was not comfortable telling his instructor that he needed him to slow down, that the simple instructions that were being given were not simple at all because he had never used that terminology before, or to ask him to show steps again.  He was bottling up the worry and frustration, working hard to try to keep up and it had got to him.  The weight of the mortgage, groceries, and family on his mind set him into panic mode.

Brian and I talked to the instructor who had no idea that he never used a computer before and the instructor was more than happy to slow down and repeat instructions.  Now, Brian is ahead in his course work.  He also has an air of confidence that was not apparent to me earlier in the school year.  As a matter of fact, Brian has become someone that other students turn to for advice.  He came to me just the other day and said, “you need to go talk to a student, they are feeling frustrated.”