What is Managerial Efficiency?
Managerial efficiency is a defining part of a manager's life today — and few thinkers have shaped this field as much as Stephen Covey, whose principles continue to help managers work more effectively decades after he first wrote them down. A quick note before I continue: English is not my first language, so please forgive the occasional imperfection. I have always found Covey genuinely fascinating as a thinker, which is why I wanted to share his video. What struck me most was his energy — well into his seventies, he still spoke about his work with the same enthusiasm and passion as someone starting out.
Inspiration from Ken Blanchard
I feel much the same way about my own work today — genuinely fortunate to have found it. As an executive coach and management trainer, I hope to carry the same energy for as long as Covey did. It's a similar spirit to what Ken Blanchard describes in his own writing on situational leadership — the idea that good managers keep renewing themselves rather than running on empty. Both authors, in their own way, come back to Stephen R. Covey's notion of sharpen the saw — the discipline of stepping back before you run out of edge.
How Is "Sharpen the Saw" Useful for Leaders?
Stephen Covey's “Sharpen the Saw” principle is directly relevant to leader training because it treats continuous personal development as a discipline, not an afterthought. Leaders who invest deliberately in their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being become more resilient under pressure, more adaptable to change, and better equipped to lead effectively through uncertainty.
This holistic approach to self-renewal also helps leaders keep a balanced perspective, which in turn fosters creativity and sharper decision-making. A manager who is physically depleted, emotionally drained, or mentally scattered rarely makes their best calls — the quality of a decision is rarely separate from the state of the person making it. And by prioritising their own growth, leaders model lifelong learning for their teams, giving others permission to invest in their own development too.
Managerial Efficiency Rests on Seven Habits
- Be proactive — take responsibility for your choices rather than reacting to circumstances;
- Begin with the end in mind — keep your goal clearly in view from the outset;
- Put first things first — give priority to what matters most, not merely what is urgent;
- Think win/win — look for outcomes that genuinely benefit everyone involved;
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood — listen before you try to be heard;
- Work in synergy — combine different strengths into something greater than their sum;
- Sharpen the saw — renew your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties on a regular basis.
Work Hard, Play Hard, and Sharpen Your Managerial Efficiency
The lesson underneath all of this is simple: sustainable performance is not a trade-off between working hard and looking after yourself — it depends on both. A manager who never rests eventually blunts their own saw; the sharpest, most effective leaders are usually the ones who have learned when to step back.
Goals
– Improve your ability to manage yourself, by taking responsibility for your choices and staying focused on what is essential rather than what is merely urgent.
– Build relationships grounded in mutual trust, the foundation that makes win/win outcomes possible in the first place.
– Increase each individual's involvement and sense of ownership, so the team works more effectively together.
Together, these three goals compound: self-management earns trust, trust enables genuine collaboration, and collaboration is what ultimately drives performance.
The Framework of Managerial Efficiency
Unlike more traditional managerial approaches, which can end up treating employees as mere instruments of output, Stephen Covey — in his world bestseller “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” — charts a path for transforming the manager from within first.
It is this gradual, inside-out transformation — built around the seven habits — that ultimately lifts an entire team upwards along with the manager who leads it. In my own coaching practice, this is often the starting point: before addressing a team's processes or structure, it's worth asking how well the manager at its centre is looking after their own saw.
This article was written by Marc Prager.