A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.
Stephen Covey

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
Stephen Covey

Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
Stephen Covey

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.
Stephen Covey

It's a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.
Stephen Covey

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen Covey

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
Stephen Covey

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.
Stephen Covey

Public behavior is merely private character writ large.
Stephen Covey

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Stephen Covey


The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Stephen Covey

There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles.
Stephen Covey

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.
Stephen Covey

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.
Stephen Covey