In his long-awaited successor to “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” workplace guru Stephen Covey includes an anecdote from Muhammad Yunus, an economics teacher in Bangladesh 25 years ago. Yunus ended up making a big change after meeting a woman who was basically stuck in poverty over a matter of small change.

She put together bamboo stools, but couldn’t afford to pay the equivalent of 20 U.S. cents to buy the bamboo. She had to borrow the 20 cents from the bamboo trader, then sell those stools to him at a price he dictated. So the woman ended up earning 2 cents a day.

As Covey explains in “The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness” (Free Press), Yunus took a student around the village and put together a list of 42 people in a similar situation.

“When I added up the total amount they needed,” Covey quotes Yunus as saying, “I got the biggest shock of my life: It added up to 27 dollars! I felt ashamed of myself for being part of a society which could not provide even 27 dollars to 42 hard-working, skilled human beings.”

He loaned them the money, asking them to pay it back whenever they could afford to. Yunus asked bankers for help, but they were all skeptical. They doubted the money would be repaid by people who were too poor to offer collateral.

Yunus got every cent back, so he went to other villages and followed the same steps, always getting repaid by the grateful borrowers. But the banks still wouldn’t do anything to help him expand his efforts.

So he created a bank of his own. Covey reports that Grameen Bank now operates in thousands of villages in Bangladesh, lending about $500 million a year — with the average loan being less than $200.

That’s an example of what Covey calls the eighth habit: “Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.” More than just the career-advice chestnut “follow your passion,” he explains how important it is to make sure your work fills a need and helps you leave a legacy.

Covey explains in the book that most of the world’s great leaders don’t get inspired by a single burst of vision, but gradually develop their purpose.

“People sense human need and respond to their conscience in trying to meet that need,” he writes. “And when they meet that need, they see another, and meet that, and on and on. Little by little, they begin to generalize this sense of need and start thinking of ways to institutionalize their efforts so they can be sustained.”

In an interview, Covey explained that most companies still base their workplace structures on industrial-age models, rather than appreciating how much value their workers’ skills add. He said that most employees either don’t understand their companies’ goals or haven’t been told exactly how their jobs help the company accomplish those goals.

Many messages aren’t clear, Covey said. Companies will tell workers how important teamwork is, then base their pay on individual contributions. They still rely on individual job descriptions rather than looking for people whose skills complement one another’s; if colleagues have complementary skills, sometimes people’s individual weaknesses become irrelevant.

Even clear messages can backfire if workers don’t get a chance to help management set the goals, Covey said. “Without involvement, there is no commitment.”

One particularly intriguing aspect of the book is that Covey includes a DVD with 16 short videos that supplement his lessons. “Many people are visual learners,” he explained in the interview. “They have been raised by television rather than by reading.”

One video shows a disorganized youth soccer team. The coach outlines an unrealistic strategy for what the kids should do, then they bumble around — just as workers sometimes do if the company’s goals seem irrelevant or unrealistic.

Covey didn’t say it, but the DVD is a metaphor for what smart leaders do, whether they’re writing books or managing teams. They make it as easy as possible for the audience to receive their message — through actions as well as words.