For the past two years, I had the chance to work with
Marquette University president
Michael Lovell on a series of podcasts. Called Leadership Lens, the podcasts were a chance for Lovell and myself to ask business leaders from across southeastern Wisconsin about how they lead their organizations, how they make decisions and what they love about this community.
In most episodes, we asked our guests who they look to in the business community for leadership inspiration. More than a few pointed to Lovell as part of their answer.
Over the course of these conversations, Lovell also shared many of his own leadership insights. Since his
passing on June 9, I’ve listened to some of our episodes again. Some of the insights he shared are collected below.
If you’re interested in listening to past episodes, the full archive is
available here.
On sharing his cancer battle with the community:
“I often describe how it's very, very hard for me to get down because there's so much support I get every day from people both on our campus and in our community. And I can just tell you something happens all the time that gives me the strength to keep fighting forward. And so as hard as that was, quite frankly, I get energy from being with people. And if I had announced the diagnoses, then I'd retreated and just kind of stayed by myself. I don't think that it would've been good for me, my health -- my mental and probably my physical health.”
On making decisions during the pandemic:
“I turned to some members, both current and former members of our board of trustees, who had been through sectors and industries that had been disrupted to get advice. And the advice that they gave me actually was excellent. They said, when you're going through the disruption, make the hard and difficult decisions that you need to make because of the disruption as early as possible and then start moving forward. And the sooner you can make those difficult decisions and the sooner you start moving forward, the better you'll be positioned once the disruption is over.”
Pursuing leadership over technical path:
“I decided to start moving up the ladder a little bit just because the higher I went, the more impact my ideas would have and the more change that I can make, hopefully that would positively impact students ultimately.”
On growing as a leader:
“When I was at the lower levels, like associate dean, I wasn't vulnerable. I didn't really think about the ways people were connected to me. I just went off and was doing my thing. But as I started to move up the ranks, I learned number one, people connect through your weaknesses rather than your strengths and so you have to be willing to share more of yourself and be vulnerable if you want to be a leader, particularly at the higher levels. And so I had to get used to, I'm an introvert, so I had to get used to letting people have insight into me in my life. And the second thing is I also, as an engineer, I was never a very good communicator, particularly orally and giving speeches and stuff. And so I knew as I was going up, I could have the best ideas in the world, but if I couldn't communicate to others, they had no value.”
“I remember I had a colleague at UWM who had been a chancellor at another institution and he told me, don't ever try to be someone you're not when you lead. I've learned over the years, that was pretty sage advice because he essentially was telling me to be authentic to who I was and don't try to lead in ways that weren't natural to me. And I think being authentic is very important for people, allowing them to attach to you as a leader. And when you're real and genuine and you show your struggles and show your weaknesses to other people, that's how they attach to you. And so at the time I didn't realize how good that advice was, but now I realize over time that he was really telling me to be my authentic self at all times when I led. …
“It was really important then at that point in my career, because again, I was young and I was thrust into a role that there were days I felt like an imposter. Why am I here? Do I really belong here making these decisions and leading this group? But over time, you learn about yourself and how you best lead.”
Role as a university president:
“If I'm best serving the university, I am looking out at the horizon and understanding the landscape and creating a vision for how Marquette's going to be successful, not just one or three years from now, but 10, 20 and 30 years from now. And also it's my role to find opportunities to bring resources to the campus. The more time I spend running the day-to-day operation of the campus, the less I'm doing what I believe is more of my role as being the president of the university.”
[caption id="attachment_592182" align="alignleft" width="530"]
Lovell takes a selfie with a group of Marquette students. Credit: Marquette University[/caption]
Showing up as a leader:
“One of the things, it's very important for me, as a leader, you have to be relatable. And one of the ways you have to be relatable is people have to feel like they know you and the way they get to know you is actually to spend time with them. And so with the campus community, it's very important for me not to always lead from my office. It's important for me to get out within the campus.”
“As a leader, one of the worst things you can do is micromanage. Because if you go in and you're the one making all the decisions, you're not using all the intellectual capacity of those that work with you and around you. … you also have to show up and so you have to, it's part of letting people know they're important and know that they're appreciated, but also sometimes you do have to ask the hard questions. But I think it's much better to ask the hard questions than defining the direction all the time.”
“Part of what we need to do as leaders, empowering others to help make decisions for the future of the organization. And if you go in there thinking you know everything, quite frankly, you're not utilizing the talents of those that are around you."
“One of the challenges you have is sometimes people ... want the answers to come from you, they want you to lead them.”
On making mistakes:
“I always say there's two reasons why I make mistakes as a leader in the decisions that I make. And the first is when I don't get enough input from others. So when you have a challenge or opportunity in front of you, the more perspectives you get looking at that, the better. … The second reason is sometimes you just don't have enough time to get input from every area or get every perspective. And in those cases, many times as a leader, you have to make a decision with your gut. And your gut isn't always right, because again, you might have all the information you need and again, you miss things. You have to make (decisions) quickly. And I think the important thing is in both cases though, you have to be humble enough to admit when you made the wrong decision or made a mistake and be willing to pivot. I think that's the more important thing.
“One of the strengths of a university is we have a great diversity of opinions and we have a lot of really intelligent people, and getting their inputs can be extremely important. And in some of the ways we get that input is them being critical of what we're doing. But if we can't answer the reasons why they're being critical, then we should really think about what we're doing.”
Lessons from sports:
“I think what you learn from things like running or individual sports is how perseverance is really important in terms of achieving your goals. And again, you don't always feel great every day and you're not always maybe (going to) feel like training. If you show up every day and you put the work in, you can achieve your goals. And I oftentimes refer to running a marathon and completing a marathon, the reward is not the, I mean, you feel elation when you cross the finish line, but the first time you're on a marathon, it's actually the training that you do and overcoming all of the hurdles along the way because every time we train for a marathon, every time you do a long run and you're adding, it's the longest you've ever run. And so that's an accomplishment in itself to push yourself to that next mile and that next mile.
“… when I look back at marathon training, it's of these things that you overcome along the way that add up to be even a greater feat than actually finishing the race itself. And so that resiliency, again, it's showing up every day at work and putting in the time and the effort and all of those small gains and advances you make when you do accomplish something that's really big, you look back and think, ‘Gosh, look at all the things that we did along the way to get us here.’ And hopefully that will make you feel fulfilled and you've accomplished something.”
