The Leadership Seven with Brad Waldron

Brad Waldron is an award-winning speaker, author and corporate athlete, with a proven track record in driving businesses, teams and individuals to grow and succeed.

As a former international-level athlete in both rugby and martial arts (winning three national titles and one international), his passion comes from personal development, training for competition and always finding new ways to grow and improve. 

Brad has also worked alongside one of the world’s biggest motivational speakers, Tony Robbins, as well as an official licensee for Steven Covey, international speaker and author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

In his Vistage event on June 14th, The Leadership Seven, Brad will run through the practical applications of Covey’s Seven Habits, as well as his tried-and-tested personal tools and techniques for creating a more motivated, productive and happier life.

Ahead of the event, we caught up with Brad to learn more about the Seven Habits and how they help you create a happier, more efficient life. 

What Does “Highly Effective” Mean?

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has been compelling and inspiring readers across the globe for almost three and a half decades, helping both leaders and teams alike to build engagement, increase morale and strengthen collaboration. 

But why is effectiveness such an important metric to measure? Let’s start with what it truly means.

Let’s say your goal is to earn a million pounds this financial year, Brad explains. So you go out, work all the hours in the world and pour all your physical and mental resources into achieving that goal. 

“By the time you’ve got your million pounds, you’re exhausted. You’re divorced. Your kids don’t have any time with you. You’ve achieved your goal—but you haven’t preserved any of the assets you used to get the business goal,” Brad says. “You’re not being effective; you’re probably instead being efficient.”

While it’s always important to be efficient and get things done in good time, working with efficiency alone is a great way to cut corners and neglect the things that are really important. 

Effectiveness, on the other hand, is about using the resources and energy you have in the most impactful way. 

It’s about achieving the goals you set while preserving and enhancing the assets you use to achieve that outcome. Working towards meaningful goals while looking after yourself and your assets—whether these are friends, family and the people that work with you, or your physical and mental health. 

“Look at it this way, if you’re not sure if you should prioritise effectiveness or efficiency, the answer to this will tell you: Would you rather have a more effective love life or a more efficient one?” Brad jokes.

“Effective people focus on what’s really important to them, they prioritise it and they organise themselves to be able to execute with excellence,” Brad says. “That’s my simple definition.”

How Does Being Highly Effective Benefit Teams?

So, why is it so important for leaders to promote and share effectiveness across their teams? 

“My mantra about being an effective leader is simply this,” Brad says, “we help people have a better day.”

That doesn’t just mean making them feel happier. It also means creating a space where teams feel engaged, energised, motivated and productive. 

“At the moment, I see high levels of exhaustion in the workplace. I see a lot of people who are always on, who always have another thing to do, or who are feeling unfulfilled—a bit like Groundhog Day where it’s just the same stuff, different day,” Brad says.  

“And I just think, ‘What a shame, that’s not effective.’ If leadership isn’t helping people be happier, more productive, effective and engaged, then what is it doing?” 

Instead, it’s down to you as a leader to make the right decisions that get people back on to the path of engagement, fulfilment and productivity. To equip them with the skills, capabilities and tools they need to be able to succeed.

Why? Because when we’re more effective, we’re happier, feel more fulfilled and lead more meaningful lives, Brad says.

How do you start to do that? With the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People… 

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

“The beauty of a habit,” Brad says, “is that once you take the habit on and start developing it, it becomes a free, naturally occurring behaviour—something you automatically do as part of who you are. And good habits are free.”

Here’s a brief breakdown of Covey’s Seven Habits, alongside Brad’s commentary on how they’re best applied. 

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Being proactive is all about choosing how you show up in life. It’s recognising the things you can control, the things you can’t, and making the best of your situation. 

“Proactive people choose their thoughts, deeds, behaviours and actions, and they own their emotions, Brad says. “They don’t worry about the weather, because they can’t change it. Instead, they worry about the clothes they wear in the weather.”

Habit 2:  Begin with the End in Mind

Habit two is all about choices. It’s setting a strategic vision for yourself and keeping it in mind as you progress toward it. 

“Get a sense of your purpose, your vision, your mission or your goals and be clear on your values in life,” Brad says. “It helps you be able to understand what’s more important to you and what you say yes to rather than focus on being lukewarm about stuff in life.”

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit three is about prioritising what’s important.

“Prioritise the things that matter the most,” Brad says. “It’s the art of execution with clarity, focusing on the things that are important but not urgent and being able to manage yourself when you’re dealing with things that are not important that come your way.” 

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit four is finding ways to build mutually-beneficial relationships with others and work together to realise higher levels of success. 

“It’s the habit of abundance,” Brad says. “It’s saying that there’s enough in the world for all of us and that we can create more by working together than we can separately. It’s a habit of high courage and high consideration for others.”

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Habit five is about understanding others before seeking to be underwood yourself, about listening before speaking and about gaining a deep understanding of people’s viewpoints and concerns.

“Most people listen with the intent to reply. Rarely do they listen with the intent to understand,” Brad says. “Habit five is focused around empathic listening, listening for feeling and the heart of a conversation. This helps you create engagement and buy-in.”

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit six is about working together openly, honestly and in complete and total alignment. 

“Synergy is about you and me creating something better together than if either of us were working independently on the same goal,” Brad says. “And in order for us to do that, we’ve got to be willing to value our differences. Whether those are our backgrounds, points of view, values, ethnicity or other.” 

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Finally, habit seven focuses on taking care of yourself.

“This is the habit of self-renewal,” Brad says. “And there are four areas that we really need to focus on.”

These are:

• The physical self (diet, nutrition, sleep and stress reduction)
• Social-emotional (relationships with friends and family)
• Mental (both mental health and regularly exercising your brain)
• Spiritual endowment (connecting with something outside of ourselves—whether that’s going out into nature, going to church, reading spiritual texts or other)

Why Tune into Brad’s Event on June 14th? 

“One thing I’ve learned is that these habits might help me if the sun is shining and the flowers are in full bloom,” Brad says. 

“But you know what? They’re just as beautiful when white water is just taking me under wave after wave.”

In our upcoming Vistage event, Brad will run through his perspective of what it takes to be an effective individual, leader and team member in the workplace, as well as offer some expert tools and techniques to help you practically apply the Seven Habits to everyday life.
Sign up for Brad’s upcoming event on June 14th here.

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