JACKSON — Once upon a time many community and organization leadership training programs around the country featured sessions on “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” authored by the late Stephen Covey. Practicing these habits was seen as a means for people to harness ambitions and work with others to get important things done.
Twenty years ago, encouraged by Mississippi Power Co., which employed such training, and funded by The Riley Foundation, The Montgomery Institute in Meridian brought leaders from all sections of the community together for such training. Additionally, 7 Habits training was embedded into the community adult and youth leadership programs. Today, only short versions of the training remain in the adult and youth programs, the community-wide training long abandoned.
Also back then, several of us ventured to an Anheuser-Busch training facility in Missouri to become certified 7 Habits trainers. What followed were numerous sessions with community and leadership groups in east Mississippi. I particularly remember a session for the Mississippi Educational Policy Fellowship program that included future Jones County Junior College (now Jones College) President Jesse Smith. (Some of it stuck, didn’t it, Jesse?)
One particular aspect of that training has stuck with me through the years. It has been an essential part of my few successes. “Focus on what matters most,” taught Covey. It is a derivative of the third habit “Put First Things First.”
Of course, Covey provided a principle-based context and taught a process a person should use to determine what matters most, both personally and professionally.
Jumping to the present, it appears our leaders in Mississippi do focus on what matters most, but often without that vital context that helps harness ambition and foster togetherness.
The Bible provides such context, too. A few years ago, Dr. Rhett Payne, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Meridian, taught a Bible-based series on faithful and effective leadership that reminded me of 7 Habits. There are others.
Common verses providing context include: Matthew 6:33, “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”; Ephesians 4:22-23, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires”; Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others”; Matthew 7:12, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets”; 1 Corinthians 10:24, “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others”; Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen”; Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Do your leaders use such context to decide what matters most?
Use this P-word comparison to help clarify your perspective. What matters most to them — performance or popularity; prosperity or profit; possession or philanthropy; progress or power; people or politics?
Hmmm.
- Bill Crawford, of Jackson, is a Republican former state lawmaker.
