Despite everything we know about good leadership, a lot of places still operate in a command and control mindset. In this episode, how to shift from command and control to trust and inspire. This is Coaching for Leaders Episode 707. We have all been in situations where we have seen command and control leadership, and so many of us want to do better than that. We want to make the shift as today's guest is going to invite us to do to trust and inspire. But how? How do we actually make that shift?
And how do we move ourselves and our organizations in a way that helps us to lead in such healthy ways? I am so pleased to welcome today's guest, Stephen M. R. Covey. He's a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and former CEO of Covey Leaders, who is a great writer and a great writer.
And how do we move ourselves and our organizations in a way that helps us to lead in such healthy ways? I am so pleased to welcome today's guest, Stephen M. R. Covey. He's a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which under his stewardship became the largest leadership development company in the world.
He led the strategy that propelled his father's book, Dr. Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to become one of the two most influential books of the 20th century, according to CEO Magazine. He's the author of The Speed of Trust, and more recently, Trust and Inspire, how truly great leaders unleash greatness and others. Stephen, what a pleasure to have you on.
Well, thank you, Dave. I think the pleasure is mine. I'm excited to be with you and with your audience and really looking forward to this conversation. Me too. My thinking has been shaped by your work, your dad's work, the work of Franklin Covey for so many years, and I know we're going to get into a bit of that in this conversation. You make the distinction in the book between command and control and trust and inspire, as I mentioned in the introduction.
And I think if we gave a essay assignment to everyone listening, it said, could you in one page describe the difference between command and control leadership and trust and inspire? I bet we'd get pretty good responses from most of the people listening who would play out that distinction well. But there's a sub distinction here too that I think is really significant because you go to great lengths in the book to point out that there's different kinds of command and control.
There's a authoritarian and there's enlightened. Could you tell me a bit about that distinction? Absolutely. I think what you're highlighting here is important because command and control is all around us. We kind of know that. But we've been working on this for really a few decades now of saying we've got to bring more people into the equation and a greater focus on all these human things.
And we are improving. And but for many, we still haven't fully shifted the paradigm of how we view people and how we view leadership. And if you don't shift the paradigm, then what happens? It just becomes a more enlightened version of command and control. It's better than the authoritarian. And you know, the authoritarian is I'm the boss. I'm in charge. You operate on fear. That's fear based.
Yeah. And we kind of all know that doesn't work very well today. The idea of the enlightened command and control is that you've moved out of fear. But now you're more into into into motivation into transactions into like fairness. And so it's what I can do for you and you for me, but it's somewhat transactional. Hey, you know, you will employ you. You produce. They employ me. I produce it's you know, a fair exchange, a transaction.
Treat people well. They'll produce more that type of thing. But we kind of still are viewing people as things. It's just that we're being kinder and and more appropriate and recognizing that people have value. But we haven't really shifted the paradigm into the more complete holistic view of people of having greatness inside of them being whole people. And where they have their own independent worth and value apart, even from the work that they're doing.
And so this enlightened command and control, I think is our biggest challenge today because we it's good. And so it's just not where it needs to be of really making the leap crossing the chasm into trust and inspire where you're really seen and recognizing the greatness inside of people where people and the growth and development of people is also important. Just like getting the results is important. We have two ends with trust and inspire getting results in a way that grows people.
And the enlightened command and control is kind of just getting results through people. People are just a means to an end. And so that I think is some of our our biggest challenge and is that the good alternative that we've that we're doing a lot of today as opposed to kind of the the crash, the harsher authoritarian command control fear based versus the enlightened command control, which is more.
And so that's what I can do for you for me transactional, but trust and inspire is inspiration is partnership. It's what I can do with you. What we can do together. So that's where we need to go in our next evolution of our leadership style. You write about this point intellectually we understand this and yet in spite of all our progress, the reality is stark.
And we're still operating with the old style of command and control. We've just become better at it much more advanced and sophisticated and its manifestation implementing the enlightened command and control style. And it was interesting like thinking about some of the research you talk about in the book that when you look at some of the numbers, I know one of the studies highlights about 8% of organizations are in that trust and inspire like truly place.
And that means 92% are there somewhere in this enlightened command and control and and one of the distinctions you point out is the carrot and stick that that in command and control. It looks a little different. It's a little more subtle, but ultimately there's a bit of carrot and stick there that keeps driving that doesn't it absolutely yet heavy.
Carrot and stick oriented why because it's basis just motivation with the idea that you got to you got to move people to do things and you got to motivate them instead of inspire them. I'm going to address motivation inspiration. And so the lead tool to motivate is rewards, you know, carrot and stick.
A authoritarian command control puts a heavy emphasis on the stick. I'm the boss. I can fire you. It's fear based. The enlightened command control puts a greater emphasis on the carrot, right rewards and I can pay you more money. I'll try to bring out more out of you that way. And look, that's all this is all real people do want rewards and they want to be motivated financially. And so that is part of the whole person, but there's just more to it. So it's necessary, but insufficient.
And so rewards and carrot and stick necessary, but insufficient. There's so much more to people and so much more to tap into that we can inspire people and and and enable them to give so much more of themselves to bring out the best in people and also keep them to attract them to retain them.
Because we see them as people not just as things that we're trying to get more out of. And so that is part of it, but it is a kind of a transition from not just motivating but truly inspiring, not just carrot and stick to the body, but really trust and inspire to the heart and to the mind and to the spirit in addition to the body. So that's the idea and you're right. A big distinction is moving to inspiring, not just motivating through carrot and stick only.
Yeah, and you share a part of your thinking in the book that you always cringe a little bit when someone you go speak somewhere and someone introduces you as a motivational speaker. And and thinking about it much more from inspiration. That is really that's really a key distinction between motivation versus inspiration.
I'm thinking about it in the way you're saying it's like motivation is like something I do to you, but inspiration is more inward. I don't know if that's a, am I framing that right? You're framing it perfectly. Yes, the motivation is external. It's extrinsic. It's outside of you. That's why it tends to be heavy, care and stick rewards and the like to try to motivate someone externally with this.
The problem with that is do rewards work? They do, but then you're motivated to get more rewards, but you just constantly need more and more stimuli more and more carrots. And whereas inspiration by contrast to your point, Dave, inspiration is internal. It's intrinsic. It's inside of people. We're trying to light that fire within because that fire once lit can burn on for months.
If not for years without the need for constant new external stimuli. See, inspire comes from the Latin term inspirare and it means to breathe life into. So trust and inspire. Breast life into relationships into teams into cultures. Whereas command and control, even in light and command control often can suck the life out of. And so that contrast, external versus internal motivation versus inspiration, we're trying to light that fire within.
And the best way we can do it for others is to first light our own fire within find our purpose, our why become inspired ourselves. Because a lit candle can light a lot of other candles, but a candle that has gone out or is unlit can't light another candle. It's hard to inspire another if we ourselves aren't inspired. So there's a sense of you move from the inside out on this. You always look in the mirror. Start with yourself. You go first, but that's the idea. You go inward.
And as my friend Doug Konant, he's the former CEO of Campbell Campbell soup company. He likes to say the only way out is in. So we all got to go inside starting with ourselves and then we move outside the relationships to teams, the cultures inside out. And that's how we lead. That's how we inspire. And and and so inspiration is internal whereas motivation is external.
And in the spirit of that, one of the things I really loved about the book is like framing the belief system because thinking about what we believe internally like shapes so many of our actions and our behaviors. And it's it's easy for all of us to think, OK, well, listen to a podcast like this. I read books. I try to do right by people. I'm a I'm a trusted inspire leader at least most of the time.
And one of the things you point out is the biggest barrier to becoming a trusted inspire leader is that we think we already are one. And that's one of the reasons I think like looking at some of these beliefs and like where these were these beliefs begin is so critical. And and this is not the first one, but it's the one that's coming up for me in the context of what you just said, Steven, that leadership, like one of these big beliefs is that people are whole people.
So my job as a leader is to inspire not nearly motivate and you highlight four aspects that make up the whole person. Tell me about that. What is it about the whole person perspective that's so critical about the belief of trust and inspire. Yeah, absolutely. So so this is kind of a fundamental belief is a mindset or a paradigm and paradigm comes from the Greek paradigm that means a mental map or model.
And the purpose of a map is to try to describe the territory, but you could have an inaccurate map of the territory. And so if you look at people as a territory, you know, what's a more accurate and complete map of people? Well, it's that people are whole people, meaning they have a body and a heart and a mind and a spirit.
And the idea is that you know, the body is the economic need, the physical need, the heart is the emotional, social need, the mind, the mental intellectual need and the spirit is that need for purpose and for meaning and for contribution to matter to make a difference. That's the whole person and if people were only just a body, just economic beans, then motivation would be sufficient. Just bam, because that's all they are.
And they do have a body and they do want to get paid and they want to get paid fairly, but they also have a heart so they want to care and connect and belong. They have a mind, they want to grow, they want to develop, they have a spirit meaning that they want meaning and purpose and contribution, they want to matter, they want to make a difference, they want to have significance and have the work that they do matter.
And so inspiring can take you take you to a whole different place and motivated and alone will never reach where you only view people as economic beans instead of as a whole person with those four needs. And body heart mind spirit and you meet all four of those that will take you to a whole different place because then you're going to tap into what really moves people really inspires them.
And so that's the idea and it's how we view them. And so I would just say this for for a leader of practical way to apply this is to say, okay, look, everyone's being paid. People wouldn't work at the jobs, right? There's a massive hierarchy of needs that play here. So we got to pay people were doing that.
That's really now also get good at the heart side, which is all around caring and belonging. And as a leader, how am I doing it in terms of the caring that people feel from me and the sense of belonging that I built on my team? Is there a sense of belonging to the people know that I care do I care focus there for the heart for the mind focus on on our people growing are they developing and getting people opportunities to grow.
And I care about their growth the whole idea that I say to someone, hey, my my passion is your potential and your growth your development. I want people to feel that from me that I know that they know that I care about their growth. That matters to them. And then the idea of the spirit is the need for purpose, the need for meaning and for contributions. So I'm trying to make sure I overlap the organization's purpose with their individual purpose is best I can to try to tap into that.
And then I'm really speaking to the whole person and I can move to inspiring so add caring and belonging to the pay. Add growth and development to the pay and add purpose and meaning and contribution to the pay. And now we'll be inspiring the whole person not just motivating the economic being in an example of this of an organization that's doing this well and it's when they're familiar with it's peppered on university.
Oh, yeah. And this is that's your that's where you got your doctor right I did. Yeah. So the garage at a school of business their business school. Their purpose had been to produce leaders who are best in the world and that's a good purpose. And and then they focused on saying you know what they change one word and really transformed everything they said no our purpose is not just to produce leaders who are best in the world.
Our purpose is to produce leaders who are best for the world. Best for the world leaders and suddenly people became inspired by that that's I'm not just working for a great institution doing important work helping people become their best person themselves.
I'm doing I'm working for an institution that's all about producing leaders who will be best for the world that will help lift society and make a difference in the leadership work that they do everywhere else and I'm part of creating best for the world leaders producing best for the world leaders that inspires me that taps into.
You know into my mind and my spirit I volunteer that and I feel a greater desire to go there when I feel like I'm doing something that's so meaningful has such purpose in it that's what I'm talking about just trying to find the ways to to create and embed purpose meaning and contribution into the work that we're doing and I think if we're created about this and intentional about it there's all kinds of ways and opportunities to do just that. So we can really inspire the whole person.
Oh, what a great example of that and the power of changing one word like so powerful too and that's actually a really great lead into one of the other beliefs and you write there is enough for everyone as a belief my job as a leader is to elevate carrying above competing and I'm thinking about it because as you mentioned that previous version of that statement like okay we're going to have the best in the world
like a little bit more of a competition framework and I think about that shift of most organization I mean one thing I've run into over there's like most organizations most people are society like we don't have that culture of thinking about abundance that there's enough and I'm wondering like how do you start to nudge a belief that may have been centered around competing for a long time in a leader a little bit more toward thinking about abundance.
Where do you start? Yeah, I think you start by looking inward hit yourself and just say kind of where am I on this do I do I believe that there is enough for everyone or or do I also really kind of buy into the traditional paradigm that there's just scarcity of everything and hey if someone else is succeeding then that comes at my expanse if someone else gets the credit I'm not getting it.
So I think it starts with us of of saying do I have an abundance mentality and mindset so I can help create it on my team and in my in our culture and my modeling this to believe it myself and and so it takes some self reflection and here's the big idea here is that abundance is a choice not a condition is that we can choose we can choose abundance so there might be scarcity all
around us and yet we choose to say I'm going to be abundant and I'm going to share credit and I'm going to share recognition I'm going to share their rewards and I'm going to share success I choose to do it because I think it's a better way to lead and that doesn't take away anything from me and the more you focus on your own personal sense of self your self trust your own credibility so that you feel secure in that the easier it is to become
more abundant and to help have others also succeed that doesn't take away anything away from me because I know who I am and what I'm all about so you always work inside that first I work on my own character my own competence my own credibility that gives me a sense of of both security of I know who I am but also a power that that I can I can give away power
because I know who I am and and I can share and I can be more abundant towards others so it starts with that abundance is a choice not a condition I knew a person that I was I was I was I was I worked with him as well it was John Huntsman senior and he was the founder of the Huntsman organization big manufacturing firm self made billionaire came from nothing
and the Huntsman organization today gives away all kinds of money John Huntsman senior passed away a few years ago but before he passed away his his children ran the company and said our job is to try to make money faster than dad can give it away because he was just giving everything away and some of might say the Senate might say well it's easy to give away money when you're self made billionaire and you have all this money to give away but here's the thing
John Huntsman senior was giving away money when he didn't have any when he was just a poor starving struggling student and he knows wife were just married and he was giving away money they didn't have a mindset it was a choice he had to always contribute and and and always to give hidden abundance mentality when he had nothing so it's a choice not a condition and some of the most abundant people I know don't necessarily have abundant circumstances
but they think abundantly some of them but I've also been around some people have abundant resources but think scarcely with scarcity so it's a choice it's a condition and look I'm not naive on this Dave I recognize that there are sometimes scar situations where there's
scarish resources inside of a company and only so much to go around I recognize that there's some of that in organizations and the law of scarcity is a good economic theory but scarcity is a lousy leadership theory because there's an abundance of everything we're trying to create of respect of empathy of compassion of creativity of innovation of commitment of passion of innovation of
trust of joy of energy of well-being of contribution of opportunity so that enables us to put caring above competing yes that's compete in the marketplace but let's care and collaborate in the workplace because it's enough for everyone but this model is by starting with
the third ourselves within abundance mindset of abundance mentality yeah and so much of it a choice as you said and requires a bit of courage and the it makes me think of one of the other beliefs that you highlight is enduring influence is created from the inside out so my job as a leader is to go first and I think about what you just said of making that choice and especially
in an organization that maybe is a little more command and control of being the person who responds with abundance or being the person who says I'm going to put some of the the mental the mental care and those intellectual needs into the conversations and the meaning and the purpose of those conversations but either way we have to go first right absolutely someone needs to go first leaders go first in any circumstance any situation so if we want to see to your point more
abundance in the culture where people share credit more freely and abundantly be the first to share credit and recognition abundantly model what this looks like be the first to believe that we can create more that there could be enough for everyone model it on your team even when we have perhaps actually
the scarce resources of what can be allocated there might be some scarcity there but you can model abundance around what we can create together you can go first and that you want more respect be the first to show and demonstrate respect we want more openness and more transparency in the culture maybe it's a lot of hidden agenda is operating be the first to be open and transparent one more empathy more
understanding be the first to be empathic to demonstrate understanding for another more trust be the first to be both trustworthy and trust and it's such a powerful idea and I think about what you just said and I'm reflecting on some of the recent conversations I've had with our members and when we get into situations where something difficult has happened how does someone
get the results they want for their team or what are happening with scarce resources in the organization I mean to come back to where we started it's interesting by the way and the people that I'm working with are people who like get this right they they are all about
the people that could write the perfect essay and spousal this like just like you and I could and yet when we get into like the tough situation and the politics and the emotion of the moment it's so interesting how often the conversation immediately goes to the carrots like how do we
get someone a little more how do we give them an incentive how do we do this and to the point earlier like that's all important right it's one of the key pieces but it's interesting to me even though we all know better how much the heart the mind the spirit
pieces missing and and and oftentimes we're thinking like okay why isn't the organization doing this work and and oftentimes one of the answers is okay where do I go like how do I be the one that starts how do I go first and and and that's what it takes
beautiful I agree and it is and and it's is harder if you're in a command and control world and it's all around you takes a lot of courage but if you work within your circle of influence I'm saying look maybe I'm in a command and control division of the company
but I'm going to be trusting inspire on my team I'm going to show I'm going to try to be a model of this kind of leadership where we get results we do it in a way that grows people we do it in a way that inspires trust and brings people with us where we treat people as whole people and then suddenly I'm starting to perform and and and and hitting my numbers but also look at my engagement scores they're high and people start to look and say what's what's Dave doing what Susan doing there and and
they're modeling this they're going first and so it's hard it takes courage but some of these to do it that's what leaders do they go first and on all these things and there's so much hope in the research to like I think about Amy Edminson's research about at Harvard on psychological safety and baking the point that you just said like you may work in an organization that doesn't get this doesn't follow this process and yet for your own individual team you can do a ton and maybe
it doesn't ever go beyond your own individual team but boy you can sure do a lot by just starting there of creating a an atmosphere of trust and sparring and and tapping in a psychological safety it's it's such a great place to start and us going first and and the language that we use to and that leads to like one of the other things you mention on beliefs is that a leader who's who's thinking about things through trust and inspire is believing that people have greatness inside them and the job of the leaders to unlawfully
the job of the leaders to unleash the potential not to control people and you you make the point when you're talking about that belief that it's one thing to have that belief it's another thing to communicate it what's so important about the communication piece of that because the communication of that belief to others is what helps them come to believe it themselves and that's what a leader does is they they see and communicate people's worth and potential
so clearly that the others come that they come to see it in themselves that's great leadership that and you know you might see it but they might not but when you communicate it to them you can do this I believe in you you've got this in you I can see it I can see these great strengths that you have I'm confident in you I'm going to give you this chance this opportunity when I have someone that's I feel like guys they believe in me they believe in me more than I believe in myself
they have more confidence in me than I do maybe then I start to come to see it that I can maybe I can do this that's great leadership and so this is a great point you're bringing up Dave because this fundamental belief that there's greatness in people you know people have greatness inside of them is often in a command control world
contested by the traditional language and structures where we have in many organizations there's we talk about the high potentials and the high potentials is basically taking is basically saying some people have greatness in them we'll call them high potentials what does that communicate the rest of the people in the organization and even to ask we suddenly don't look for the greatness in others we just look at for it in the high potentials
what if we as a leader went first and saw greatness in everyone is not what you look at that matters is what you see as we Henry David throws it so look for the greatness see the greatness it might be lying dormant but it's it's there if we can see it and then communicate it to another so they can come to see it themselves then begin to develop it and then unleash it meaning giving people an opportunity
giving them a chance giving them a responsibility a job to do with the belief that we're behind them they start to see it themselves and then they become a leader and and then that's the greatest act of leadership is to create other leaders this way helping them see that potential so here's a keepy of advice I'd give to a leader that wants to implement this this idea of seeing the greatness in others is to try to focus on treating people according to their potential not just their behavior
because they might not know who they are yet that they're capable of being a great leader but if you treat them according to their potential they tend to rise up to that potential
become that person when you treat them that way when you communicate their potential to them so they come to see it in themselves when you develop it and then unleash it giving them an opportunity they start to become it and you have you are you are being a great leader because you are unleashing the greatness is in others and it all starts by first seeing it and then communicating it so I call this see communicate develop and then unleash potential
Stephen Franklin Covey is an organization and your family in particular has done so much to inspire many of us in leadership over decades and decades not only leading organizations but leading ourselves well and to that point Bonnie's teaching a class right now all these decades later that centered around the seven habits a highly effective people it's just like
Stephen such a timeless framework and I you know I often ask people what they've changed their minds on and I've got a slightly different version of that question for you you talk about your dad a lot in the book and the seven habits and his his influence on your life I'm curious like what you recall from your dad that he taught you about leadership that caused you to change your mind on something yes I would say this that the idea that interdependence is a much higher and more impactful value
than independence and that was built deep in the seven habits which is really all about how you move a person from dependence to independence to interdependence again sequence matters and so the first three habits have a move of person from dependence independence for the next three habits move a person from independence to interdependence and that's a higher value you can do more together
and so it was it was as I spent time with my father that paradigm shift that we need to move to a higher level interdependence it's a with paradigm it's a partnership paradigm a collaborative paradigm and it's got to start with that paradigm shift that's a key insight and it's the idea that also my father would would say this that the most significant break throughs are break with the traditional thinking of independence to say there's interdependence
Stephen M.R. Covey is the author of trust and inspire how truly great leaders unleash greatness and others Stephen thank you so much for your work you're welcome Dave thank you and for the great contribution you are making with this coaching for leaders podcast 13 plus years
we're doing this and the difference impact you are having on helping people becoming the best version of themselves as a leader the coaching that you're providing through this podcast so really honored to be with you well thank you it is a real joy every single day if this conversation was helpful to you three related episodes I'd recommend one of them is episode 404 how to build psychological safety Amy Edminson was my guest on that episode
talking about her work out at Harvard and all the incredible research she's been doing over the years to help us all get better at making teams organizations safe places for people to be able to communicate and to talk about mistakes and so many of the things we all spousen organizations and yet in practice doesn't happen in a lot of places the starting points for that in episode 404 and where to begin
even if you're in an organization where that may not be the case broadly there's a lot all of us can do as individual leaders to bring more of that into our teams episode 404 great starting point for you also recommended episode 488 leadership means you go first Keith for
Aussie was my guest on that episode and that was his message leadership means we go first it is the responsibility of the leader to set the tone and yes to take the first step you heard echoes of that in this conversation with Stephen
Moore to inspire us from Keith Keith also be back on the show in just a few weeks as well episode 488 for that and then finally I'd recommend episode 626 the starting point for repairing trust with Henry Cloud Henry and I talked about the situation we all find ourselves in which is someone has broken trust with us for whatever reason and then what do we do we've almost all of us run into that situation the workplace most of us many times
where for whatever reason we've lost trust with someone else and yet we still need to work with them maybe there appear maybe there a manager maybe there are key stakeholder how do we move forward past an event where trust was destroyed episode 626 the beginning points for that all of those episodes you can find of course on the coaching for leaders dot com website and if you haven't yet I'd invite you to set up your free membership at coaching for leaders dot com
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next week I'm glad to welcome Charles felt meant to the show we are going to be having a related conversation on how to prepare for a conversation with someone you don't trust join me for that conversation with Charles and I'll see you back here on Monday