“Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People” from Covey. He states “The single most powerful investment we can ever make in life is an investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw. ”
When I first finished college and got married I was motivated by Stephen Covey and his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, and I remember reading that book and getting so motivated to be the best wife and future mother and employee that I could be. What I didn’t realize by that initial motivation from reading that book as I look back now 39 years later, was that what Covey really instilled in me was that the most powerful investment I could ever make was to invest in myself first because that would be the only instrument that I would have to deal with life and contribute to this world. I didn’t realize then what I know now, and that is that everything in life is centered around “leaders.” I just followed his insight and steps in those 7 Habits to improve who I was at that time without realizing that I was taking steps towards being a leader in every aspect of my life without even knowing how important it was to be a leader.
Over 39 years later I am still reading inspirational direction from Covey because the book quoted in this blog above is a book that I got about a year ago as a gift and I found myself again motivated by his insight and wisdom. What I realize now as I read this almost 40 years later is that the journey that I have been on has made me a different person and that I have been blessed to have been placed in multiple situations both personal and professional where I remember that as long as I focus on what I can contribute and “lead” myself, that it will make a difference and others will engage their hearts and souls and lead with me. When we realize that being a leader is made for all of us and not just a chosen few, we will all want to be a leader and that is why I want to give back to others what I have been blessed with over the years by helping someone else benefit from understanding what a leader is and helping them to know how to be that leader that they have always dreamed about.
Organizational benefits of coaching include:
- Better productivity (reported by 53% of participants),
- Quality (48%),
- Organizational strength (48%),
- Customer service (39%),
- Retention (32%).
- They also cited improvements in cost reduction (23%),
- And profitability (22%).
Among personal benefits, they reported:
- improved relationships with direct reports (77%)
- Improved relationships with peers (63%)
- Better teamwork (67%), and increased job satisfaction (61%)
