Stephen Richards Covey was an American educator, author, businessman, and motivational speaker. His most popular book was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Early Life and Education

Covey was born to Stephen Glenn Covey and Irene Louise Richards Covey in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 24, 1932. Louise was the daughter of Stephen L Richards, an apostle and counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to David O. McKay. Covey was the grandson of Stephen Mack Covey who founded the original Little America Wyoming near Granger, Wyoming. He was athletic as a youth but suffered from a slipped capital femoral epiphysis in junior high school, requiring him to change his focus to academics and a member of the debate team and graduated from high school early.

Covey earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Utah, an MBA from the Harvard Business School (HBS), and a Doctor of Religious Education from Brigham Young University (BYU). He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He was awarded ten honorary doctorates.

Philosophical Background

Covey was heavily influenced by Peter Drucker and Carl Rogers. Another key influence on his thinking was his study of American self-help books that he did for his doctoral dissertation. A further influence on Covey was his affiliation with the LDS Church. According to Clayton Christensen, The Seven Habits was a secular distillation of Latter-day Saint values.

Books

Covey's book Spiritual Roots of Human Relations was published in 1970 by Deseret Book Company. Reading this book will identify how Covey's later works were a secular development of these earlier ideas.

Personal Life

Covey lived with his wife, Sandra Merrill Covey, and their family in Provo, Utah, home to BYU, where Covey taught prior to the publication of his best-selling book. Parents of nine children and grandparents of fifty-five,[citation needed] Stephen Covey received the Fatherhood Award from the National Fatherhood Initiative in 2003.

Covey's grandson, Britain, played college football at his alma mater, University of Utah, and signed as an undrafted free agent to the Philadelphia Eagles following the 2022 NFL Draft.

Religion

Covey was a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served a two-year mission in England for the Church.[13] Beginning in July 1962, Covey served as the first president of the church's Irish Mission. Starting in 1973, Covey served for a time as a mission representative of the Quorum of the Twelve, where he oversaw training of missionaries in missions in the eastern United States. When Covey studied as an MBA student at HBS, he would, on occasion, preach to crowds on Boston Common.

Injuries and death

In April 2012, Covey was riding a bike in Rock Canyon Park in Provo, Utah, when he lost control and fell. He was wearing a helmet but according to his daughter, the helmet slipped and his head hit the pavement. She said Covey "went down a hill too fast and flipped forward on the bike. It was a pretty big goose egg on the top of his head." Covey also suffered cracked ribs and a partially collapsed lung.

Covey died from complications resulting from the bike accident at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on July 16, 2012, at the age of 79.

Honors and Awards

• The Thomas More College Medallion for continuing service to humanity
• The National Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership
• The 1994 International Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• One of Time Magazine's 25 most influential Americans of 1996
• The Sikh's 1998 International Man of Peace Award
• 2003 Fatherhood Award from the National Fatherhood Initiative
• 2004 Golden Gavel award from Toastmasters International
• Accepted the inaugural Corporate Core Values Award from the California University of Pennsylvania on behalf of the FranklinCovey Corporation at the "national Franklin Covey Conference" (December 2006).
• Inducted into the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum Hall of Fame on November 14, 2009
• Maharishi Award from Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa
• Aman2020 Award from Aman Wolde foundation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.