Learning Leadership

Through classes, programs, workshops, and international trips, the Stephen R. Covey Leadership Center provided almost 3,000 development opportunities for students over the past academic year. The scope and influence of the Covey Center is increasing, attracting students from majors across the university. Leadership is the enabling art that enriches any field of study.

This year students attended high-impact workshops from Joseph Grenny (Crucial Conversations), Jim Huling (4 Disciplines of Execution), David Moss (The Arbinger Institute), Cynthia Covey Haller (Live Life in Crescendo), Eduardo Zanatta and Scott Lamb (two Covey Founders). In these workshops, they learned skills to increase their ability to lead, to find purpose, and to improve their relationships.

In addition to receiving excellent training, students also practiced the principle of "teaching to learn". During the 2022-23 school year, the Covey Center trained over 350 k-12 students by hosting a variety of leadership workshops and conferences. These experiences included an "endurance" themed conference for elementary students with Ernest Shackleton as our guide, sports-themed training for Green Canyon High School athletic captains, and community-outreach focused training for the North Logan Student City Council. Students are learning what Stephen Covey taught, "that the key to life is not accumulation but contribution".

The Covey Center organized and provided scholarships for students to study principle-centered leaders throughout the world. These international experiences expand students' paradigms by introducing them to different cultures and some of history's greatest leaders—past and present. Students begin by studying the lives of great leaders in the classroom, then travel to locations around the globe to walk where they walked and learn about how they successfully navigated complex challenges.

In March, students studied the art of bridge building from the life of Nelson Mandela and traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, to meet with political, educational, and business leaders. In May, a group of students studied the rise and fall of three great civilizations and the leadership that contributed to them, and then traveled to London, Madrid, and Rome to study the principles of leadership that contribute to the flourishing and declining of nations. These students embody what Nelson Mandela stated, that "education is the most powerful force for changing the world".