Most of us have an innate desire to improve our families. Subconsciously we want to move from survival toward success or significance. But we often have a tough time. We may try as hard as we possibly can and do everything we can think of, and yet the results may be the exact opposite of the ones we want.

This is especially true when we're dealing with a spouse or a teenager. But even when we're dealing with young children, who are generally more open to influence, we wonder how to influence them in the best possible way. Do we punish? Do we spank? Do we send them to a room by themselves? Is it right to use our superior size or strength or mental development to force them to do what we want them to do? Or are there principles that can help us understand and know how to influence in a better way?

Any parent (or son, daughter, brother, sister, grandparent, aunt, uncle, nephew, niece, or other person) who really wants to become a transition person-an agent of change-and help a family move higher on the destination chart can do it, particularly if the person understands and lives the principles behind the four basic family leadership roles. Because family is a natural, living, growing thing, we'd like to describe these roles in terms of what we call the Principle-Centered Family Leadership Tree. This tree serves as a reminder that we're dealing with nature and with natural laws or principles. It will help you understand these four basic leadership roles and also help you diagnose and think through strategies to resolve family problems. (You might want to take a look at the tree.) With the image of this tree in mind, let's take a look at the four family leadership roles and how cultivating the 7 Habits in each role can help you move your family along the path from survival to significance.

Modeling

I know of one man who loved to go hunting with his father when he was a young boy. The father would plan weeks ahead with his sons, preparing and creating anticipation for the event.

As an adult, this son told us: I will never forget one Saturday opening of the pheasant hunt. Dad, my older brother, and I were up at 4:00 A.M. We ate Mom's big, hearty breakfast, packed the car, and drove to our designated field by 6:00 A.M. We arrived early to stake out our spot before any others, anticipating the 8:00 A.M. opening hour.

As that hour drew near, other hunters were frantically driving around us, trying to find spots in which to hunt. As 7:40 arrived, we saw hunters driving into the fields. By 7:45 the firing had started-fifteen minutes before the official start. We looked at Dad. He made no move except to look at his watch, still waiting for 8:00 A.M. Soon the birds were flying. By 7:50 all hunters had moved into the fields, and shots were everywhere.

Dad looked at his watch and said, "The hunt starts at eight o'clock, boys." About three minutes before eight, four hunters drove into our spot and walked past us into our field. We looked at Dad. He said, "The hunt starts for us at eight." At eight the birds were gone, but we started our drive into the field.

We didn't get any birds that day. We did get an unforgettable memory of a man I fervently wanted to be like-my father, my ideal, who taught me absolute integrity.

Now what was at the center of this father's life-the pleasure and recognition of being a successful hunter or the quiet soul satisfaction of being a man of integrity, a father, and a model of integrity to his boys?

On the other hand, I also know of another man who set quite a different example for his son. His wife recently said to us: My husband, Jerry, leaves the guidance of our fourteen-year-old son Sam to me. It's been that way ever since Sam was born. Jerry has always been sort of an uninvolved observer. He never tries to help.

Whenever I get after him and tell him he should get involved, he just shrugs. He tells me he has nothing to offer, and I am the one who should teach and lead our son.

Sam is now in junior high school, and you would not believe the problems he has! I told Jerry that the next time Sam's school principal called, he would have to take the call because I've had it. That night Jerry told Sam that his mom wasn't going to help him anymore, so he'd better quit causing problems.

I got so mad when he said that, I just wanted to get up and leave. When I exploded, Jerry said, "Hey, don't blame me. You're the one who's been in charge. You've taught and led him, not me."

Who is really teaching and leading this young boy? And what is this father teaching his son? The father has tried to forfeit his influential position by stepping aside and supposedly letting his wife do the influencing. But has he not had a powerful influence as well? When Sam grows up, won't his father's actions (or lack of actions) have influenced him in profound ways?

There is no question that example is the very foundation of influence. When Albert Schweitzer was asked how to raise children, he said, "Three principles-first, example; second, example; and third, example." We are, first and foremost, models to our children. What they see in us speaks far more loudly than anything we could ever say. You cannot hide or disguise your deepest self. In spite of skillful pretending and posturing, your real desires, values, beliefs, and feelings come out in a thousand ways. Again, you teach only what you are-no more, no less.

That's why the deepest part of this Principle-Centered Family Leadership Tree-the thick fibrous root structure-represents your role as a model.

This is your personal example. It's the consistency and integrity of your own life. This is what gives credibility to everything you try to do in the family. As people see in your life the model of what you're trying to encourage in the lives of others, they feel they can believe in you and can trust you because you are trustworthy.

The interesting thing is that, like it or not, you are a model. And if you're a parent, you are your children's first and foremost model. In fact, you cannot not model. It's impossible. People will see your example-positive or negative-as a pattern for the way life is to be lived.

As one unknown author so beautifully expressed it: If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.

If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith in himself.

If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.

If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love.

If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive.

If a child lives with recognition, he learns to have a goal.

If a child lives with pity, he learns to be sorry for himself.

If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.

If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with friendliness, he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live.

If we are careful observers, we can see our own weaknesses reappear in the lives of our children. Perhaps this is most evident in the way differences and disagreements are handled. To illustrate, a mother goes to the family room to call her young sons to lunch and finds them arguing and fighting over a toy. "Boys, I've told you before not to fight! You work it out so each has a turn." The older grabs it away from his smaller brother with "I'm first!" The younger cries and refuses to come to lunch.

The mother, puzzled as to why her boys never seem to learn, reflects for a moment on her own handling of differences with her husband. She remembers "only last night" when they had a sharp exchange over a matter of finances. She remembers "only this morning" when her husband left for work rather disgruntled after a disagreement on plans for the evening. And the more this mother reflects, the more she realizes she and her husband have demonstrated over and over again how not to handle differences and disagreements.

This book is filled with stories that illustrate how the thinking and actions of children are shaped by what parents think and do. The thinking of the parents will be inherited by their children, sometimes to the third and fourth generations. Parents have been scripted by their parents . . . who have been scripted by their parents in ways that none of the generations may even be aware of.

That is why our role modeling as parents to our children is our most basic, most sacred, most spiritual responsibility. We are handing life's scripts to our children-scripts that, in all likelihood, will be acted out for much of the rest of their lives. How important it is for us to realize that our day-to-day modeling is far and away our highest form of influence in our children's lives! And how important it is for us to examine what is really at the "center" of our lives, to ask ourselves, Who am I? How do I define myself? (Security) Where do I go and what do I do to receive direction to guide my life? (Guidance) How does life work? How should I live my life? (Wisdom) What resources and influences do I access to nurture myself and others? (Power) Whatever is our "center," or the lens through which we look at life, will profoundly affect our children's thinking-whether we are aware of it and whether we want to have this influence or not.

If you choose to live the 7 Habits in your personal life, what is it that your children will learn? Your modeling will provide an example of a proactive person who has developed a personal mission statement and is attempting to live by it; of a person who has great respect and love for others, who seeks to understand them and be understood by them, who believes in the power of synergy and is not afraid to take risks in working with others to create new third-alternative solutions. You will provide a model of a person who is in a state of constant renewal-of physical self-control and vitality, continual learning, continual building of relationships, and constant attempting to align with principles.

What impact will that kind of model have on your children's lives?

Mentoring

I know a man who is very committed to his family. Even though he is involved in many good and worthwhile activities, the most important thing to him by far is to teach his children and to help them become responsible, caring, contributing adults. And he is an excellent model of all he is trying to teach.

He has a large family, and one summer two of his daughters were planning to marry. One evening when they both had their fiances in the family home, he sat down with all four of them and spent several hours talking with them, sharing many things he had learned that he knew would help them along the way.

Later, after he had gone upstairs to get ready for bed, his daughters went to their mother and said, "Dad just wants to teach us; he doesn't want to get to know us personally." In other words, Dad just wants to dispense all this wisdom and knowledge he has accumulated through the years, but does he really know us as individuals? Does he accept us? Does he really care about us, just as we are? Until they knew that, until they could feel that unconditional love, they were not open to his influence-however good that influence might have been.

Again, as the saying goes, "I don't care how much you know until I know how much you care." That's why the next level of the tree-the massive, sturdy trunk-represents your role as a mentor. "Mentoring" is building relationships. It's investing in the Emotional Bank Account. It's letting people know that you care about them-deeply, sincerely, personally, unconditionally. It's championing them.

This deep, genuine caring encourages people to become open, teachable, and open to influence because it creates a profound feeling of trust. This clearly reaffirms the relationship we mentioned in Habit 1 between the Primary Laws of Love and the Primary Laws of Life. Again, only when you live the Primary Laws of Love-when you consistently make deposits in the Emotional Bank Accounts of others because you love them unconditionally and because of their intrinsic worth rather than because of their behavior or social status or for any other reason-do you encourage obedience to the Primary Laws of Life, laws such as honesty, integrity, respect, responsibility, and trust.

Now, if you're a parent, it's important to realize that whatever your relationship with your children, you are their first mentor-someone who relates to them, someone whose love they deeply desire. Positively or negatively, you cannot not mentor. You are your children's first source of physical and emotional security or insecurity, their feeling of being loved or being neglected. And the way you fulfill your mentoring role will have a profound effect on your child's sense of self-worth and on your ability to influence and teach.

The way you fulfill your mentoring role with any family member-but particularly with your most difficult child-will have a profound impact on the level of trust in the entire family. As we said in Habit 6, the key to your family culture is how you treat the child that tests you the most. It is that child who will really test your ability to love unconditionally. When you can show unconditional love to that one, the other children will know that your love for them is also unconditional.

I have become convinced there is almost unbelievable power in loving another person in five ways simultaneously: Empathizing: listening with your own heart to another's heart.

Sharing authentically your most deeply felt insights, learnings, emotions, and convictions.

Affirming the other person with a profound sense of belief, valuation, confirmation, appreciation, and encouragement.

Praying with and for the other person from the depths of your soul, tapping into the energy and wisdom of higher powers.

Sacrificing for the other person: going the second mile, doing far more than is expected, caring and serving until it sometimes even hurts.

Most often neglected of the five are empathizing, affirming, and sacrificing. Many people will pray for others; many will share. But to truly listen empathically, to truly believe in and affirm others, and to walk with them in some kind of sacrifice mode so that you are doing what they would not expect you to do-in addition to praying and sharing-reaches people in ways that nothing else can.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to teach (or influence or warn or discipline) before they have the relationship to sustain it. The next time you feel inclined to try to teach or correct your child, you might want to push your pause button and ask yourself this: Is my relationship with this child sufficient to sustain this effort? Is there enough reserve in the Emotional Bank Account to enable this child to have an open ear, or will my words just bounce off as though he or she were surrounded by some kind of bulletproof shield? It's very easy to get so caught up in the emotion of the moment that we don't stop to ask ourselves if what we're about to do will be effective-if it will accomplish what we really want to accomplish. And if it won't, much of the time it's because there's not enough reserve to sustain it.

So you can make deposits into the Emotional Bank Account. You can build the relationship. You can mentor. As people feel your love and caring, they will begin to value themselves and become more open to your influence as you try to teach. What people identify with far more than what they hear is what they see and what they feel.

Organizing

You could be a wonderful model and have a great relationship with the members of your family, but if your family is not organized effectively to help you accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, then you're going to be working against yourself.

It's like the business that talks teamwork and cooperation but then has systems-such as compensation-that reward competition and individual achievement. Instead of being in alignment with and facilitating what you want to accomplish, the way you have things organized actually gets in the way.

In a like manner, in your family you may talk "love" and "family fun," but if you never plan any time together to have family dinners, work on projects, go on vacations, watch a movie, or have a picnic in the park, then your very lack of organization gets in the way. You may say "I love you" to someone, but if you're always too busy to spend meaningful one-on-one time with that person and fail to prioritize that relationship, you will allow entropy and decay to set in.

Your organizing role is where you would align the structures and systems in the family to help you accomplish what's truly important. This is where you would use the power of Habits 4, 5, and 6 at the mentoring level to create your family mission statement and set up two new structures that most families don't have: dedicated weekly family times and calendared one-on-one dates. These are the structures and systems that will make it possible to carry out the things you're trying to do in your family.

Without creating principle-based patterns and structures, you will not be able to build a culture with common vision and shared values. Moral authority will be sporadic and shallow because it will be based only on the present actions of a few people. It won't be built into the culture of the family.

But the more moral or ethical authority grows and becomes institutionalized into the culture in the form of principles-both lived and structurally embodied-the less dependent you are on individual persons to maintain a beautiful family culture. The mores and norms inside the culture itself will reinforce the principles. The very fact that you have weekly family time says a hundredfold that family is truly important. So even though someone may be flaky or duplicitous and someone else may be lazy, the setting up of these structures and processes compensates for most-though not all-of those human deficiencies. It builds the principles into the patterns and structures that people can depend on. And the results are similar to those that happen when you go on a vacation: A family may have emotional ups and downs on a vacation, but the fact that they went on a vacation together and that it was renewing a tradition builds the principles into the culture. It frees the family from always being dependent on good example.

Again, in the words of sociologist emile Durkheim, "When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable." In adapting this to the family we might say, "When mores are sufficient, family rules are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, family rules are unenforceable."

Ultimately, if people won't support the patterns and structures, then you'll see instability enter the family, and the family may even struggle for survival. But if these patterns become habits, they become strong enough to subordinate individual weaknesses that manifest themselves from time to time. For example, you may not begin a one-on-one or family time with the best of feelings, but if you spend the entire evening doing some fun thing together, you'll probably end with the best of feelings.

This is one of the most powerful things that I have learned in my professional work with organizations. You must build the principles into the structures and systems so that they become part of the culture itself. Then you are no longer dependent on a few people at the top. I've seen situations in which an entire top management team moved into another company, but because of the "deep bench strength" in the culture, there was hardly a blip in the economic and social performance of the organization. This is one of the great insights of W. Edwards Deming, a guru in the field of quality and management and one of the key reasons for Japan's past economic success. "The problem is not in bad people, it's in bad processes, bad structures and systems."2 That is why we give such energy to this organizing role. Without some basic organizing it's easy for family members to become like ships that pass in the night. So the third level of this tree-depicted by the trunk breaking out into the larger and then smaller limbs-represents your role as an organizer. This is where people experience how the principles are built into the patterns and structures of everyday life so that not only do you say that family is important but they experience it-in frequent meals together, family times, and meaningful one-on-ones. Soon they come to trust these family structures and patterns. They can depend on them, and this gives them a sense of security and order and predictability.

By organizing around your deepest priorities, you're creating alignment and order. You're setting up systems and structures that support-rather than get in the way of-what you're trying to do. Organizing becomes an enabler-literally transforming restraining factors into driving or enabling factors on the path from survival to significance.

Teaching

When one of our sons started junior high school, he began coming home with poor test scores. Sandra took him aside and said, "Look, I know you're not dumb. What seems to be the problem?"

"I don't know," he mumbled.

"Well," she said, "let's see if we can't do something to help you."

After dinner they sat down together and went over some of the tests. As they talked, Sandra began to realize that this boy wasn't reading the instructions carefully before taking the tests. Furthermore, he didn't know how to outline a book, and there were several other gaps in his knowledge and understanding.

So they began to spend an hour together every evening, working on reading, outlining books, and understanding instructions. By the end of the semester he had gone from 40 percent test scores to all A's and one A plus!

When his brother saw his report card on the fridge, he said, "You mean that's your report card? You must be some kind of a genius!"

I am convinced that part of the reason Sandra was able to have that kind of influence at that time in his life is because of her modeling, mentoring, and organizing. She placed a high value on education, and everyone in the family knew it. She had a great relationship with this son. She had spent hours and hours with him over the years, building the Emotional Bank Account and doing things he enjoyed. And she organized her time so that she could be with him to help him in this way.

These teaching moments are some of the supreme moments of family life-those incomparable times when you know you've made a significant difference in the life of another family member. This is the point at which your efforts help "empower" family members so that they develop the internal capacity and skill to live effectively. And this is at the heart of what parenting and family are all about.

Maria (daughter): I'll never forget an experience I had with my mother many years ago when I was a teenager. My father was away on a business trip, and it was my turn to stay up late with Mom. We made hot chocolate, chatted for a while, and then got comfortable in her big bed in time to watch a rerun of Starsky and Hutch.

She was a few months pregnant at the time, and while we were watching TV, she got up abruptly and ran to the bathroom where she stayed for a long time. After a while I realized that something was wrong as I heard her quietly weeping in the bathroom. I went in to find her with her nightgown covered in blood. She had just had a miscarriage.

When she saw me come in, she stopped crying and explained to me in a matter-of-fact way what had happened. She assured me that she was fine. She said that sometimes babies aren't fully formed the way they should be, and this was for the best. I remember taking comfort in her words, and together we cleaned up and then went back to bed.

Now that I am a mother, I am amazed at how my mother was able to subordinate what must have been heart-wrenching emotions into a learning experience for her teenage daughter. Instead of wallowing in her grief, which would have been the natural thing to do, she cared more about my feelings than her own and turned what could have been a traumatic experience for me into a positive one.

Thus, the fourth level of the tree-the leaves and the fruit-represents your role as a teacher. This means that you explicitly teach others the Primary Laws of Life. You teach empowering principles so that as people understand them and live by them, they come to trust those principles and trust themselves because they have integrity. Having integrity means their lives are integrated around a balanced set of principles that are universal, timeless, and self-evident. When people see good examples or models, feel loved, and have good experiences, then they will hear what is taught. And the likelihood is very high that they will live what they hear so that they, too, become examples and models and even teachers for other people to see and trust. And this beautiful cycle begins again.

This kind of teaching creates "conscious competence." People can be unconsciously incompetent-they can be completely ineffective and not even know it. Or they can be consciously incompetent-they know they're ineffective but don't have the internal desire or discipline to create needed change. Or they can be unconsciously competent-they're effective but don't know why. They're living out positive scripts they've been handed by others; they can teach by example but not by precept because they don't understand it. Or they can be consciously competent-they know what they're doing and why it works. Then they can teach by both precept and example. It's this level of conscious competence that enables people to effectively pass knowledge and skill from one generation to another.

Your role as a teacher-in creating conscious competence in your children-is absolutely irreplaceable. As we said in Habit 3, if you do not teach them, society will. And that is what will mold and shape them and their future.

Now, if you've done your own interior work so that you are modeling these Primary Laws of Life, if you've built relationships of trust by living the Primary Laws of Love, and if you've done the organizational work-having regular family times and one-on-ones-then this teaching will be much, much easier.

What you teach will essentially come out of your mission statement. It will be the principles and values that you have determined to be supremely important. And let me tell you here to pay no attention to people who say you shouldn't teach values until your children are old enough to choose their own. (That statement itself is a "should" statement that represents a value system.) There is no such thing as value-free living or value-free teaching. Everything is hinged and infused in values. You therefore have to decide what your values are and what you want to live by and, since you have a sacred stewardship with these children, what you want them to live by as well. Get them into the wisdom literature. Expose them to the deepest thoughts and noblest feelings of the human heart and mind. Teach them how to recognize the whisperings of conscience and to be faithful and truthful-even when others are not.

When you teach will be a function of the needs of family members, the family times and one-on-ones you set up, and those serendipitous "teaching moments" that present themselves as wonderful gifts to the parent who is watching for opportunity and is aware.

With regard to teaching, I would offer four suggestions: Discern the overall situation. When people feel threatened, an effort to teach by precept-or telling-will generally increase the resentment toward both the teacher and the teaching. It's often better to wait for or create a new situation in which the person is in a secure and receptive frame of mind. Your forbearance in not scolding or correcting in the emotionally charged moment will communicate and teach respect and understanding. In other words, when you can't teach one value by precept, you can teach another by example. And example teaching is infinitely more powerful and lasting than precept teaching. Combining both, of course, is even better.

Sense your own spirit and attitude. If you're angry and frustrated, you can't avoid communicating this regardless of the logic of your words or the value of the principle you're trying to teach. Restrain yourself or distance yourself. Teach at another time when you have feelings of affection, respect, and inward security. A good rule of thumb: If you can gently touch or hold the arm or hand of your son or daughter while correcting or teaching and you both feel comfortable with this, you'll have a positive influence. You simply cannot do this in an angry mood.

Distinguish between the time to teach and the time to give help and support. To rush in with preachments and success formulas when your spouse or child is emotionally fatigued or under a lot of pressure is comparable to trying to teach a drowning man to swim. He needs a rope or a helping hand, not a lecture.