In this interview with Stephen M.R. Covey, he highlights the shift needed from outdated command-and-control leadership models to the trust-and-inspire approach. This shift focuses on recognizing people’s untapped potential and unleashing it. These principles extend beyond the workplace, affecting parenting, teaching, and more.
Stephen emphasizes that trust remains crucial in remote work settings, and leaders must overcome barriers like fear and skepticism. Restoring trust, especially in fields like accounting, requires leaders to behave their way back into trust.
Stephen distinguishes between leading and managing, emphasizing that people want to be led, not managed. Leadership, to him, is stewardship, a responsibility based on influence, not authority. Leaders should model, trust, and inspire to unlock their teams’ potential.
He cites Satya Nadella as an example of a trust-and-inspire leader who has transformed Microsoft’s culture through modeling, trusting, and inspiring. Finally, Stephen applauds the TrustTalk podcast for its focus on the critical topic of trust.
Background
Stephen M. R. Covey is a New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The SPEED of Trust—The One Thing That Changes Everything. He is the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which, under his stewardship, became the largest leadership development company in the world. Stephen personally led the strategy that propelled his father’s book, Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, to become one of the two most influential business books of the 20th Century, according to CEO Magazine. As President and CEO of Covey Leadership Center, Stephen nearly doubled revenues while increasing profits by 12 times. During that period, the company expanded throughout the world into over 40 countries, greatly increasing the value of the brand and enterprise. The company was valued at $2.4 million when Stephen was named CEO, and, within three years, he had grown shareholder value to $160 million in a merger he orchestrated with Franklin Quest to form FranklinCovey.
Stephen co-founded CoveyLink, a consulting practice, which focuses on enabling leaders and organizations to increase and leverage trust to achieve superior performance. He merged CoveyLink with FranklinCovey, forming the Global Speed of Trust Practice, where Stephen serves as Global Practice Leader.
Stephen Covey speaks about the work we do for the TrustTalk podcast
Severin, I want to say this, that I think the work you do here with this TrustTalk podcast is significant and truly magnificent, and you’re making a real contribution because of the different perspectives and angles you are bringing to what I believe is the most important conversation and topic of our time, trust. Because it is trust that makes our world go round at every level, in every dimension. And your TrustTalk podcast is focusing on that, so I commend you and the work that you’re doing, my friend.