Success Quote by Stephen Covey

Covey slips a moral gut-check into the language of management: your "being" is the real memo everyone reads. The line flatters the self-improvement instinct (you can cultivate a better core), but it also threatens the performative habits of corporate life, where polished decks and action plans can masquerade as integrity. By putting "in the last analysis" up front, he borrows the authority of hard-nosed evaluation - as if character is the final metric after the KPIs, the quarterly narratives, the leadership workshops.

The specific intent is behavioral, not philosophical. Covey is telling readers that influence is less about technique and more about credibility: trust comes from the felt consistency between values and presence. "What we are" functions like a silent brand. You can talk empathy, but if your impatience leaks through in meetings, your team believes the leak. You can "do" the right tasks, but if the motives read as ego or fear, the doing curdles.

Subtext: authenticity isn't optional, because people are always running informal audits. Humans are pattern-recognition machines, especially in hierarchical settings where employees watch leaders for signals about safety and fairness. Covey's context - late-20th-century business culture obsessed with tactics, charisma, and productivity - makes this a rebuke to managerial ventriloquism. He implies that no amount of communication training can compensate for a thin inner life, because your character will broadcast itself anyway, through tone, choices, and the small permissions you grant yourself when no one is keeping score.