Sufyan Patel Leadership & Responsibility

13055102 49069

SUBJECT: 49069 Leadership & Responsibility

Coordinator: Tom Anderson

STANDARD MODE

(Please cross the appropriate item)

Assessment task 1: Critical Analysis

Assessment task 3: Response Paper

Date: 17/10/2018
Students must submit their assignments electronically through
the Leadership & Responsibility UTS Online site.

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Student Details
(Please use identical information to your enrolment details)

Family Name/Surname: Patel

First Name: Sufyan

Student ID Number: 13055102

Assignment due by: 17/10/2018

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Personal Response to Stephen Covey’s the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Introduction:

During my college days, one of my relatives had given this book- Steven covey’s ‘The
seven habits of highly effective people’ - as a birthday gift. Since then, I had read and re-read that book
at least 2 times. This book had a great impact on me growing up and now re-reading this book for this
assessment after many years brings back memories and provides me with new insights about life. This
time I had read the book from the perspective of an employee in a work setting and how to apply the
rules and principles this book contains to the work place.

About the book:

This book written by Stephen Covey is one of the most popular self-help books in the
world. It is both a character development book as well as a book on leadership. The book’s main idea is
that for a person to be successful, he/she must focus on cultivating certain habits which stem from
certain values and principles, instead of focusing on developing certain personality traits. Cultivating
habits is far easier than cultivating personality traits. Hence readers find it easier to incorporate the
teachings of this book-to cultivate habits- in to their lives and become successful. These laws were not
invented by Stephen Covey but rather these are natural laws known to mankind since many ages.
Stephen collected them in a single book and presented to us in an interesting and easily implementable
format.

I will give my personal response to the contents of this book by looking at the principles and habits as
laid out in the book.

Paradigm and Principles

As I was reading this part, the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies or the “Pygmalion effect”
caught my attention. I have further researched about this topic on the internet to get better
understanding. According to the research done by Psychologist Rosenthal, other people’s perception
about us and their actions towards us, shape our own expectations about ourselves. This expectations in
turn shape our behavior. This was very fascinating for me and gave me new insights about human
psyche. For example, if I am treated as a competent and jovial person by my colleagues and managers at
the workplace, I form a perception about my self that I am a competent and jovial person. Accordingly, I
try to maintain this status and reach these expectations by learning more skills and being jovial with
others at workplace. So here, expectations of others are acting as positive reinforcers for my behavior.
From this I gather that a healthy environment in workplace where everyone supports each other and
maintain positive frame of mind will bring out the best from the employees.

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Character Ethic:

I think that this book’s main objective is to stress on the importance of developing a strong
moral core than relying on techniques for short fixes like developing certain personality traits. This is
difficult and takes time, but it is good in long run. With the help of the story of his son, Stephen explains
this importance of developing character ethic. The fascinating thing for me was that his son succeeded
more due to the development of self esteem rather than through social rewards.

Growth is a gradual process which happens step by step. We cannot take the shortcuts provided
by personality ethics to skip some of these stages. For me, this drives home the point about doing hard
work, being discipline and patient.

The inside-out approach to character building says that private victories precede public
victories. This is a great insight for anyone who want to grow as an individual and as a professional. We
must work on our inner strengths rather than lament external factors that we cannot control.

Perceptions & Paradigms:

This concept is particularly useful for resolving conflicts between people at workplace. As the
demonstration about the young lady/old lady showed from the same basic facts, people perceive two
different realities. That means, people can take two different stands on a decision and both could be
true. The conflict between differing stands could be resolved if people would acknowledge that both the
perceptions could be true and differences stem from seeing from different vantage points. By going
through a process, people could get a paradigm shift can understand the views of others, there by
resolving conflicts.

Developing habits:

Habits are things that we do routinely without thinking about them. However, developing a
behavior in to a habit takes time and effort. As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Hence if we want to excel in any field we need to habituate
certain acts through practice. The initial ‘lift-off’ for developing habits takes the most effort. For
example, I have a bad habit of checking my social media feed before going to bed. I intend to wake up
early each morning, but somehow, I am enabling to change the habit of staying on the mobile phone
late in to night which stops me from waking up early. To change this habit, it would take a lot of will
power and mental energy. After reading this book I am motivated to change this habit. I have the
knowledge of what to and why to change the habit and now I need to gain the skills to do it.

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P/PC balance:

The fable about the golden eggs, teaches us the importance of investing in the goose, the PC-
production capability and enjoying the golden eggs-the P-production. In a workplace, the organization
must first identify the golden eggs that we must aim for and we must invest/train the goose (people &
processes) to get the desired golden eggs. We must not lose track of our objectives and we must keep
the goose well maintained.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

This part teaches us that our life is not entirely determined by the external factors like genes,
childhood experiences and other environmental stimuli. As humans we have the unique ability of self-
awareness and freedom which help us determine our own lives. Hence if we want to change our lives for
better, we must be proactive rather than bemoaning about outside factors that we cannot control. An
organization or a person who is more proactive and do things rather than be shaped by external stimuli
would be more successful in the long run. Many times, I act as a reactive person, for example I am
driven by how people react to me rather than driven by my core values. This effect my decision-making
ability and my emotional competence. I am working on trying to control my emotions when other
people react negatively towards me and respond according to my values. Organizations need to be
aware of their ‘circle of concern’ and ‘circle of influence’ i.e. things that they can do something about
and things that can’t be influenced. Based on this awareness they need to be pro-active in addressing
these things by enlarging their circle of influence.

One of the important life lessons for me in this chapter is how we incrementally grow our inner
strength and self-esteem by making and keeping small commitments, goals and promises to ourselves
and others.

Habit 2: Begin with The End in Mind

Developing this habit is vital for my career growth because, this concept tells me to develop a
career plans for the next 5years, 10 years and 20 years. This helps me focus on things the that are
important and channel my energies that I value the most. Accordingly, I have drawn a career plan for
myself. In the immediate future, my objective is to get employed as a junior web developer in a global IT
consultancy company. In the next 5-7 years, I intend to gain skills and experience to reach the position
of a project manager. At the end of the career, I would like to see myself as a Chief Technology Officer of
a global IT company.

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Apart from professional life, I have also visualized the end of my life with respect to relations
with my family, my friends, my colleagues and the community that I am part of. This was a powerful
exercise and it helped me realize things that are most important to me.

This part also differentiates between management and leadership. A leader is one who has a
vision of a future. Organizations in this rapidly changing world need better leaders than better
managers. This vision of the future arises when we think of the ‘end first. Every organization needs to
develop a set of values for themselves so that they can react consistently and proactively to situations.

Habit 3: Put first things first

I think the concept of the fourth-generation time management is the most important takeaway
from this whole book. Dividing a week’s tasks in to four quadrants and prioritizing them while also being
flexible and giving importance to relations is a great practical tip and I have benefited by following this
method of scheduling.

My own quadrants:

• Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important

o Assignments
o Involvement in community activities
o Stock market analysis
• Quadrant 2: Not urgent and important
o Long term planning
o Balancing P/PC
o Nurturing relations with family and close friends
o Learning new things
• Quadrant 3: Urgent and not important
o Attending to unimportant phone calls
o Going through office mails
o Attending formal meetings
• Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important:
o Watching TV
o Going through social media feed
o Trivial work things
o Reading unimportant things deeply

I consciously try to dedicate more time to doing things in quadrant 2 over others

Similarly, organizations must also draw up their own quadrants to prioritize their activities. Because of
the Pareto principle of 20-80, the small number of priority activities would bring 80% of results.

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Emotional bank account

This concept is very helpful to create a workplace environment where employees maintain
healthy relations among themselves by building emotional deposits in each other’s bank account. It
raises trust among team members and group cohesiveness would rise.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Organizations must promote the thinking of Win-Win interaction among people. This way of
thinking is mutually beneficial and mutually satisfying which leads to development of good emotional
bank among employees. This increases trust and cooperation among employees which finally is good for
the organization. We must keep in mind the golden words: ‘cooperation in the workplace is as
important to free enterprise as competition in the marketplace’. The systems in the organization namely
the reward system, performance appraisal and fixing of target, will determine the level of cooperative
environment present in an organization.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

I think, this is the most difficult of all the seven habits to cultivate. This is because, our ego,
impatience, own vanity etc. come in between and impairs us from seeking to understand others before
trying to be understood. We must3 listen to understand rather than to reply to their words. To be
effective we need to develop emphatic listening skill. This method of listening helps to gain the
perspective of others and this enables us t4o see their need or the problem that they are facing. In many
situations, just actively listening would solve many problems even before we provide any solutions.

Habit 6: Synergize

Of all the beautiful concepts that this book teaches, asking us to ‘synergize’ with each other
feels like a cliché. Nevertheless, this is a highly valued concept by all now a days. In a sense ‘synergy’ is
the culmination of all the other previous habits. We need to have a central core, build an emotional
bank, seek win-win situations and willing to empathetically listen to one another to achieve Synergy.

In the organizational context, synergize involves people realizing that whole is more than sum of
its parts and working as teams rather than as individuals will enhance the productivity of the overall
organization and create new solutions.

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In this section, he differentiates between how left brain and right brain works differently. I think
the research on this topic has advanced very much compared to when this book has been written.
Hence the book requires a revision concerning this aspect of the book.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

The woodcutter example explains the importance of maintenance, practicing and rehearsing in a
simple yet vivid way.

After re-reading this section I realized that I have been slacking off with regards to maintaining
my physical and spiritual fitness. Stephen Covey urges us to sharpen our saw regarding the four
dimensions of nature which are: Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Social/Motivation.

After the realization, I have included activities such as exercising and meditation in to my second
quadrant.

Conclusion:

Overall, this is an a very effective book in transforming readers in to effective people if we

follow the natural principles outlined in the book. It has helped me in the past and I am sure it will be a
source of advice and comfort for me in future as well.

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