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Stephen Covey’s “Emotional Bank Account”
July 5th, 2023
by Bill Boyajian

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey uses a metaphor called the “Emotional Bank Account.”  It describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship.  Followers who have a high degree of trust in their leader or owner have witnessed a continuous pattern of care and concern for people.  They become true believers in their leader because they’ve consistently seen kindness, honesty, and integrity in the leader’s behavior toward them and others over time.

This history of trust establishes an “emotional bank account” such that, by making continuous “deposits,” a leader builds a hefty supply of what Covey calls leadership “reserve.”  Any good leader will at times blow it and need to make a withdrawal.  If a leader’s emotional bank account is empty, his or her account gets overdrawn.  But when the leader has built a large reserve by making many deposits over time, minor mistakes (withdrawals) are easily overlooked.  Great leaders and successful owners never get overdrawn because their deposits always exceed their withdrawals.

Building a healthy emotional bank account is the key to your leadership.



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