The following contains excerpts from the book, The 8th Habit (Steven Covey).
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. When studying the subject of Leadership, relationships play a vital role.
“Being effective as individuals and organizations is no longer optional in today’s world – it’s the price of entry to the playing field. But surviving, thriving, innovating, excelling and leading in this new reality will require us to build on and reach beyond effectiveness. The call and need of a new era is for greatness. It’s for fulfillment, passionate execution, and significant contribution. These are on a different plane or dimension. They are different in kind – just as significance is different in kind, not in degree, from success. Tapping into the higher reaches of human genius and motivation – what we could call Voice – requires a new mind-set, a new skill-set, a new tool-set…a new habit…This 8th Habit is to Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs…Voice is unique personal significance – significance that is revealed as we face our greatest challenges…voice lies at the nexus of talent (your natural gifts and strengths), passion (those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate and inspire you), need (including what the world needs enough to pay you for), and conscience (that still, small voice within that assure you of what is right and that prompts you to actually do it. When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion – that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet – therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.”
We believe that each student at our music school in Midland, Texas has a unique calling and gifting that is unique and worthy developing.
Peter Drucker made the following statement: “In a few hundred years, when the history of our time is written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event those historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time – literally –substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”
“Because many in positions of authority do not see the true worth and potential of their people do not possess a complete, accurate understanding of human nature, they manage people as they do things. This lack of understanding also prevents them from tapping into the highest motivations, talents and genius of people.
One of the most important tenets, if not the most important one, at our music school in Midland, Texas is that each student is valuable, and in that value has the capacity to be creative.
“No matter what has happened, is now happening, or will happen, there is a space between those things and our responses to them. If there is even a fraction of a second between stimulus and response, that space represents our power to choose our response to any situation…What is moral authority? It is the principled use of our freedom and power to choose. In other words, if we follow principles in our relationships with each other, we tap into the permission of nature. Natural laws (like gravity) and principles (like respect, honesty, kindness, integrity, service and fairness) control the consequences of our choices…By the principled, humble use of freedom and power, the humble person obtains moral authority with people, cultures, organizations and entire societies…moral authority requires the sacrifice of short-term selfish interest and the exercise of courage in subordinating social values to principles.”
“The four magnificent parts of our nature consist of body, mind, heart and spirit…Corresponding to these four parts are four capacities, or intelligences, that all of us possess: our physical or body intelligence (PQ), our mental intelligence (IQ), our emotional intelligence (EQ) and our spiritual intelligence (SQ)…Discipline arises when vision joins with commitment. The opposite of discipline and the commitment that inspires sacrifice is indulgence – sacrificing what matters most in life for the pleasure or thrill of the moment…When conscience governs vision, discipline and passion, leadership endures and changes the world for good. In other words, moral authority makes formal authority work. When conscience does not govern vision, discipline and passion, leadership does not endure, nor do the institutions created by that leadership endure. In other words, formal authority without moral authority fails.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas we teach that emotional expression rides upon the skill and capacity to carry that emotion, and that commitment, dedication and sacrifice are the prerequisites for authenticity of artistic expression.
“Perhaps the most important vision of all is to develop a sense of self, a sense of your own destiny, as sense of your unique mission and role in life, a sense of purpose and meaning. When testing your own personal vision first ask yourself: Does the vision tap into my voice, my energy, my unique talent? Does it give me a sense of ‘calling,’ a cause worthy of my commitment? Acquiring such meaning requires profound personal reflection asking deep questions and envisioning.”
“The highest challenge inside organizations, including families, is to set them up and run them in a way that enables each person to inwardly sense his or her innate worth and potential for greatness and to contribute his or her unique talents and passion – in other words, voice – to accomplish the organization’s purpose and highest priorities in a principle-centered way…You can’t lead inventories and cash flow and costs. You have to manage them. Why? Because things don’t have the power and freedom to choose. Only people do. So you lead (empower) people. You manage and control things.”
“Personal development precedes the building of trusting relationships, and trusting relationships are an absolute prerequisite to developing an organization characterized by teamwork, cooperation and contribution to the wider community…Ultimately a good leadership team is a complementary team where people’s strengths are made productive and their weaknesses made irrelevant by the strengths of others.”
Our goal at our music school in Midland, Texas is to develop the unique strengths within each student. This takes consent and a sort of teamwork between the parent, student and teacher, and ultimately becomes a benefit to the society, at large.
“It is only when people actually experience for themselves how a conscience-driven person models pathfinding, aligning and empowering that leadership actually takes place…Modeling is also not the work of just an individual; it’s the work of a team. When you have a team of people that builds on each individual’s strengths and organizes to make individual weaknesses irrelevant, you have true power in an organization…a complementary team.”
“Just as trust is the key to all relationships, so also is trust the glue of organizations. It is the cement that holds the bricks together. I have also learned that trust is the fruit of the trustworthiness of both people and organizations. Trust comes from three sources: the personal, the institutional, and one person consciously choosing to give it to another – an act that leads me to feel your belief that I can add value. You give me trust and I return it. Trust is a verb AND a noun. When it’s both a verb and a noun, it’s something shared and reciprocated between people.”
Trust is the foundation for all relationships and, as our slogan at our music school in Midland, Texas states: music is more than sound, it is relationships. Therefore, trust = relationships = music.