Louise Morman
If you're open to learning and growing even when it's hard, and knowing that struggle is good because you're growing, that will take you there. It's not magic and it's not easy, but wanting to grow even in struggle, that's the secret.

President Greg Crawford
Hello. I'm Greg Crawford, president of Miami University, and welcome to "In Such a Place," the podcast where we explore the future of higher education and the vital role colleges and universities play in shaping our world leadership today is about more than having the right skills or knowledge. It's about character, judgment, resilience and the ability to navigate complex, uncertain challenges. Joining us for this episode is Louise Mormon, Executive Director of the Lilly Leadership Institute at Miami, where she brings that expertise to undergraduates by helping them develop not just knowledge, but also a way to think. We will explore how the Lilly Leadership Institute cultivates transformational leaders, while leadership development matters more than ever, and how students today can prepare to make meaningful contributions in their professions, in their communities, and beyond. Welcome to the podcast, Louise.

Louise Morman
Thank you, President Crawford. I really appreciate you inviting me to do this.

President Greg Crawford
Well, it's great to have you here today. Why don't you start off and tell us a little bit about yourself, your educational background and how you came back to Miami?

Louise Morman
Well, something I'm very proud of is that I am an alum of Miami University. I graduated in what was called systems analysis, which is mathematical modeling and computer science quite a while ago, and along the way, I was lucky enough to get an MBA. I've got a graduate degree in leadership and transformational learning. I've been to the Harvard Executive Program, and I've had lots of years of working, which taught me a lot. So coming back to Miami was so special. Actually, after I retired from my job as a senior vice president in Manhattan, I thought I got a chance to start at Miami, and I got a really good education there, and I also have a lot of years of hard knocks and really important things that I learned through my life, and I knew that the young people are going to face a world that's a lot more complex, actually, than the world I entered out of College. So I came back to start this Leadership Institute, and I'm really thankful, and I'm thankful to to you, President Crawford, for being so open to our unique kind of program, because I think it makes a real difference for the people and for their futures.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, we'd love having the program here at Miami. And it's just fantastic when I visit you guys every year and just seeing what the students are doing and actually their enthusiasm for the, you know, the human-centered side of their education. You know, they're, they're all in engineering or computer science for the most part, and and they really do bring that human development side? So I'm going to have a question about that. But I've heard you talk in the past about vertical development versus horizontal development. Can you explain what transformational leadership entails and why it's more important than ever in a rapidly changing world our students face today?

Louise Morman
Oh, that's such a good question. You know, leadership is such a broad term, and it has so many facets. And when I think of all the leadership opportunities available at Miami, it's unbelievable. You know, we have hundreds of student organizations. We have a great business school. But the way I distinguish our work, most of the time when we think of leadership education, even in business, it's what's called horizontal development. So that's where you're building on your toolkit. You're getting more knowledge, you're getting more skills, you're getting credentials. What we do in horizontal development is different. It's the leader within this is looking at how you think about things, how you make meaning of the world, how you face up to your own blind spot. Paths so you can open up to new possibilities. Because the truth of the matter is, in today's world, many, many issues don't have easy answers, and the world I entered was a little more structured today, artificial intelligence can do the easy stuff we need humans to do that special thing, and that requires us being much more open and resilient.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, I like the way you framed artificial intelligence. That's great. You know, many of your students are highly skilled technically. You know, they're fantastic on the technical side. How do you help them develop the inner capacities to think, to lead, to make sense of very complex situations, not just apply that knowledge that they've learning in the classroom?

Louise Morman
Well, it's hard, you know? They are really impressive students. I mean, it's just wonderful, and they're so intelligent, and they have been brought up into a world that is based on a syllabus and rubrics and structure, and that's a really good educational way to gain knowledge.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah.

Louise Morman
However, in the kind of evolving that we're working on, honestly, it's about struggle. I know that sounds something that they may not want to do, but it's how you grow on the inside. And I I try to talk to them about being what I call RISC seekers. And it's R, I S, C, and the R stands for resilience. So that means you really stick in there and do the work, even though it's hard and things aren't going right, you bounce back and keep on going. And The I stands for inner strength. And I know this is something that you feel very strongly about, but values really looking at what really matters. And then the S stands for systems thinking and strategic thinking. So you're looking at the big picture, not just about yourself and your inner circle, but how does this impact? You know you were talking about earlier, the community, society, your whole organization, and then the C stands for collaboration. Because I think the real secret, again, in this new world of artificial intelligence is that we're we're not going to be like even the engineers no longer going to be by themselves behind a computer. They're always going to be collaborating, and I'm hoping that they're going to collaborate, to really listen and learn from people that are different from them, because that's how we develop better things. So that's what we work on. And honestly, I put them in uncomfortable situations on purpose.

President Greg Crawford
That's great. Do you when you select teams and have them work on projects together, do you intentionally intervene to get the diversity of different backgrounds and groups just to train them up in that way of thinking?

Louise Morman
Absolutely.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, it's great.

Louise Morman
And you know, they come to me and they think, Well, I want to be with like minded people. But one of the things that we're fortunate, and you helped us do this, is we now have more of a variety of majors. We still have predominantly pretty, you know, a lot of computer science and engineers, but we now have graphic artists, we have a political science major, we have finance majors, we have physics majors, and they're from different parts of the world. They have different ways of thinking. We try to mix it up as much as possible, and then I also try to bring in a lot of speakers that are of different age groups, so they can see there's a world out there that's bigger and broader and exciting to learn about different things rather than staying in our closed little cocoon.

President Greg Crawford
So you've personally led in multi-billion dollar organizations, and what lessons do you bring to the classroom and to our students and the Lilly Institute about judgment, self awareness and handling ambiguity, because it's a complex world out there, as we all know, and students are going to be entering a complex place. So how do you bring that into their experience here at Miami?

Louise Morman
Well, I will have to say my experience working out there in industry certainly has had a huge impact on me wanting to create the Institute, but in how in and how I put it together, one of the things I can honestly say is. I, you know, I was very technical person, and that grew up to be in senior leadership, and a lot of the mistakes I made, I refer to some of the learnings as scars that I have now learned. But I will also say that a lot of the kind of work we do in the Leadership Institute, unfortunately, you don't get even in business until you're in middle management or higher. So along the way, I went back for a really serious and intense executive coaching training, and that helped me too, because I saw a lot of the people that I worked with that were really smart and experts in their field, they got stagnated in their careers, and you're thinking, Wait, they're really good at what they do, but they couldn't get past some of their own mind traps. They weren't as open to other people's opinions. And some of these things we talked about, you know, which some people call soft skills, and it's really sad that those people can't evolve and get to the next level, because we need that kind of leader in this world.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, yeah. Today, you really do need the full package?

Louise Morman
You do that's a wonderful way of saying it. That's exactly right. And I just want to say, you know, all these other forms of leadership are important, don't get me wrong. I mean, they matter, but now things have gotten more complex, and I think this is just the beginning. So you need the full package. I love that. I'm gonna steal that.

President Greg Crawford
Well, you have emphasized that leadership is about how we engage questions and people and certainly uncertainty. So how do you help the students see leadership as something that they can practice in life, not just in their careers.

Louise Morman
Yeah, that's really important. So I don't think of leadership as like a job or a title or that the students sort of think when they first start, you know, young, they think it's bossing other people around and convincing other people to do what you want them to do. And when they get to the point that they learn that this is a way of being in your whole life, with your family, with your friends, with your community, when they start to understand it's about thinking about things that are larger than yourself, that's when the transformation is beginning, and that's what I call the magic. And when they start to see that, I'm like, Oh, we're on the path.

President Greg Crawford
Well, I think, you know, at Miami, I've just always been impressed with the students that we bring in, 18 years old, and we start with a really great raw material, and it's just always wonderful to see them. You know, not just perform well in the classroom or their laboratories or the library research, whatever it may be, but getting involved with the community, even beyond the university, is really also a great way to practice leadership.

Louise Morman
Absolutely.

President Greg Crawford
They all seem to do it, and they all seem to love it, and I do think that's what sets them apart when they go get their first job and also get their first leadership responsibility.

Louise Morman
I totally agree with you, and Miami has, like, all these opportunities now, obviously, I graduated really long time ago, but now, I mean, we had opportunities back then, but that was several decades ago, but now there are so many, and I can see it, and when they talk about so a lot of our work is about reflection, because you don't necessarily grow by just doing, because you can make the same mistakes over and over, right? So the reflection and they often talk about their experiences and study abroad, working with students from different countries, I can see it in them, and they're getting that from other parts of Miami University.

President Greg Crawford
Absolutely. Do you ever have to pull them back in and talk to them about dialing back on some things because they're doing a lot of different things are too much. And how do you have those conversations with some of our really high flying students who want to do everything?

Louise Morman
Well, we do have really high achieving students, and in the beginning, I think it's kind of natural in their first year. So they join every club, every every you know, and they have four majors and etc. So one of the things we talk about, which is part of leadership too, is learning how to sort of figure out how you're going to make your dent in the universe. That's the way we talk about it, right? So this is your purpose, and you have to do some. Prioritization, and it also gets back to going beyond people pleasing. So sometimes it's hard to tell people in a club you can't be in there anymore because you've got to focus.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah.

Louise Morman
But that's part of the learning truth, those crucial conversations. So absolutely we do, and it's tough, but that's part of them growing, because when you know, when you become a leader, there are so many things pulling at you. And I think, as a president of a university, there's probably no better example of what happens to you in getting pulled in every direction.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, it's always just, it's, it's helpful too. When you think about leadership, that when you want to serve others, you know, in a great way, you also have to serve yourself and take care of yourself. And so there's a bit of that self care that you got to do. And I'm glad our students are learning about that. I've never been good at it.

Louise Morman
Well, all of us, all of us, struggle with it, right? And it's a strength and a weakness, right? It's a wonderful thing. But that gets back to the leader from within, and even that inner strength I was talking about, if you don't take care of yourself and you don't focus, you can't make your dent in the universe, whatever you choose that to be, because You're scattered. And so that's really a good point.

President Greg Crawford
So many adults, they never move beyond leading from external expectations. How do you help students understand how to be more self-authored?

Louise Morman
Well, this, this is hard, and when you think of even from a psychology point of view in adult development, right? As a student, they come in, they're at the age group where belonging is very important, right, what their peers think is very important. And that's not wrong. I mean, that's a healthy way to be at this age, but what we try to do is talk to them about the difference between looking good and being good. So it's great to make all your friends happy and try to make everyone else happy, but you need that internal compass to be good, even when you have to make hard decisions, that part is a struggle. I'm not going to lie, that's a struggle, but in many of the things that we talk about with them, we're planting a seed to understand, and we're putting in safe situations to try this out, so that over the years, they can really grow and develop and know that it's possible. So that's how we try.

President Greg Crawford
Oh, that's great. So people call it different things, but learning is always enhanced when you're challenged, when you stretch yourself, you're outside your comfort zone, etc. There's a lot of ways to say it. How do you intentionally design experiences for students that truly stretch them, that make them reflect more and help develop their resilience?

Louise Morman
Well, I'll give you a current example. So in the spring semester, the juniors are going to conduct online workshops, so it's like a class over a few weeks time. And in the class are going to be seasoned business leaders, alums of the Leadership Institute who might have two, five, 10, years experience, and even retirees, and they are going to have what's called a co creation, where you're working together with the participants to talk about what we are just mentioned in vertical development. They were scared to death at this concept. They were they're like, Well, this is something that you develop over many decades of your life. How are we going to do this? But what they're doing is, little by little, they're building confidence. They're learning all the facets of how to do it, and they know that they're actually going to learn from the participants. It's not just about teaching. And I think even though they're scared, and I'm not going to lie, they're really challenged with this, and I don't blame them, because it's a really soft, squishy topic and they're going to be dealing with X, you know, people who've lived their lives, but that's the point, right? You get out there, you try it, and then you learn you can do more than you ever thought you could.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah.

Louise Morman
And you can learn from other people by listening to them. So that's one example of how we do it.

President Greg Crawford
That's great. And then, you know, Miami, we're a national university, and we pull students from all the various states around around the country. We have all kinds of international students from many places around the world. And so you do start off with cohorts of very diverse students.

Louise Morman
Yes.

President Greg Crawford
And I'm just curious if you can tell us a little bit about how you teach them, or how they experience collaboration, and especially when you know they're going to be with teams or others that are perhaps different perspectives or different viewpoints. I think in some cases, the stem folks, sometimes people get this misconception that you design something, you engineer, and there's only one answer, but we know there's a lot of perspective that goes in on the technical side, a lot of judgment, even though there's algorithms and different things to help us out, but tell us how you train them up to really accept those diverse perspectives. You know, talk them out, talk them through, and then try to converge on a great solution.

Louise Morman
Yeah, well, one of the things that we do that is tends to be pretty unusual, at least for the technical students, is usually our technical majors, I mean, they're just like the first time they meet with a team, no matter how diverse it is, they're like, boom, let's solve this problem. They don't necessarily think about all the aspects of the problem, but they love to solve problems, and I'm one of them, okay? So I can say this, because this is how I was, too, right? Let's just solve it, and let's quickly split up the work, and then we'll each work independently and then shove it all together at the end. Okay, and as a former professor, you remember this, but we do a weird thing before they can start the work. We require them to talk to each other, about their backgrounds, about their different styles, like we use various, you know, methods like Myers Briggs and different things, business school comes and teaches some strength, finders, et cetera, with our students, and we make them spend the first session getting to know one another and having them actually talk about something that we talk about, which are saboteurs. So these are traits that get them in trouble. So some people are perfectionist, some people are restless, some people are people pleasers, so they actually have those kind of conversations. And as you can imagine, I'm just going to pick on engineers, because I've spent most of my life working with engineers. They're like, what? But what happens is, all the time that they're working on the project, it's not just about getting it done. It's not about just solving the problem. It's how they work with each other, and that makes the total difference, because I don't know if you're the same, but when I think of things that derailed in my career, it's because we jumped too fast and we didn't really listen to each other and really scope out the problem correctly, so we didn't really have the right questions, because we were so sure we knew how to solve it. So it's it requires some coaching along the way, because it's not natural, in what they've learned so far, but honestly, it's produced some really great results.

President Greg Crawford
Oh, that's fantastic. And then even going along these lines some more, with so much rapid change that we're experiencing, it's AI, it's societal shifts, it's the political environment. There's so much going on in the world today. And how do you prepare students and future leaders to navigate all this thoughtfully, but also in a way that's proactive, and maybe they can think a little bit ahead, right? So they don't get caught by surprise.

Louise Morman
Right. Well, one of the things that really matters is talking about the importance of embracing change naturally. As humans, you know, we tend to resist, but if they can practice, I mean, that's sort of why I have them do these uncomfortable things they think they can't do. Or they don't want to do or, you know, whatever is it gets them a little bit used to embracing it. And I think one of the big parts this goes back to that systems thinking and strategic thinking is to have them do things that broaden their perspective, like, how will this impact? How will changes in technology and society and regulation change this company you want to go work for? What's that going to be like 10 years from now? So we try to ask some questions that expand their timeframe, how it impacts around the world, and you're just sort of always challenging them to pull to open, open, open. Because, in my humble opinion, I think it's one of in addition to everything else we do at Miami, it's one of the things that the world needs, especially now.

President Greg Crawford
It's interesting, you mentioned Systems Thinking several times today, and I'm a huge believer in it, and I practice it nonstop, but I was a Professor, and one of my colleagues needed me to teach his class in controls and systems for a semester, so I jumped in and I had the math to do it. It wasn't my expertise area or anything, but I just absolutely loved it.

Louise Morman
Yes.

President Greg Crawford
And then what I like about what you do at Lilly with systems thinking is when you solve a problem and then you go to the system like, what internal systems may this disrupt or enhance? And you look at external systems automatically, by definition, you're being proactive.

Louise Morman
Exactly.

President Greg Crawford
So it just adds to a way to think about the future and maybe pick out some of the problems, issues or opportunities that you may have in a week or a month or a year down the road, after you start implementing and executing on that idea.

Louise Morman
Exactly, in my mind, it changes how we think, because you're thinking bigger broader, and that brings forth opportunities you never thought of, you know, as well as issues you need to deal with.

President Greg Crawford
Exactly. So leadership growth isn't just about the early career success, and we know our graduates are fantastic out there once they go out into the real world. But how do you help students connect their leadership development to contributing positively to their communities and to society at large?

Louise Morman
Well, we think of what we do in kind of like our facet of leadership as always for the long term. Because, I mean, Miami graduates are going to do well, okay, we, you know, we have great students, and we have great professors, and there's all this opportunity. And what I have found, because I'm very close with all of our alumni of the Institute we stay connected forever, is that this sort of way of being is consistent with what you've said, that it's about more than just yourself. It's not just your achievement, not your success, not you just looking good. It's how can you make the community around you, or as far as you can go, better? And you know, I'm just going to do a little shout out to Eli Lilly and Company. Right? They're our partner now in making this possible, and it's very much how they run their company. So we also like to expose them to business people that believe this too. To say this is for the rest of your life. When you're younger, you sort of think life is about grades and, you know, that sort of thing. But then you see, here are these business people that come and they talk about what they do in their work, and then they talk about how they volunteer in their communities. And, you know, in the case of Lilly, you know, maybe save people's lives.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, that's fantastic. And you've also said that universities need to focus on development, not just those basic skill sets or knowledge. So how should students and families think about the long term value of leadership development beyond the traditional measures, like salary, job placement, et cetera?

Louise Morman
Right. I think it's really important that, I mean, there's a lot of pressure in society for these sort of transactional measurements. You know, might start with grades, and then it goes to salary or title, but I don't think that translates to fulfillment and making a better world. And I cannot tell you how many people I know. So you know, I worked in Manhattan, right? And there were a lot of people with fancy titles that made big money, that were really unhappy and didn't feel like their work mattered in the long run. I think our students can be very successful in those traditional ways, and I think they can have more. And I think in a lot of ways, Miami provides this. I mean, it's not, you know, like ours is just a little sample, but we, you know, I'll tie in, you know, we have a really broad training, like not just in one thing, we have liberal arts. We have all of these other opportunities for them to do these things early. Those make a difference, I think, forever.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, and our breadth of education here is amazing. It helps out no matter what discipline you students choose to study, but it does give them the human center piece that is so needed today, especially in the complex world that we live in and leading through that is super important to have those human skills,

Louise Morman
I totally agree.

President Greg Crawford
And then looking ahead, human judgment and sense making are becoming increasingly important. What qualities do students need to develop now to be effective, thoughtful leaders in the future?

Louise Morman
I think the ability to adapt, to be open and to continue to grow. I mean, that's really the secret of the work that I talk about. We're just starting. They're just starting on their journey. But that openness, as we discussed, that you can get at Miami, because you have all of these opportunities and all these different kinds of people and all these professors and staff people, you know, if you're open to learning and growing, even when it's hard, and knowing that struggle is good because you're growing that will take you there. It's not magic, and it's not easy, but wanting to grow even in struggle, that's the secret.

President Greg Crawford
That's great. So you know, at Miami, we have graduates that go off and lead fortune 500 companies. We're really well known for that big companies, big private companies. We have entrepreneurs galore. We have such a fantastic entrepreneurship program, and many of them go off and start unicorn companies and really bring great value society and others. You know, we see it in elected officials, our governor of the great state of Ohio, and the first lady are Miami Merger. And you know, in Cradle of coaches, it's been a big deal for us. We have three Super Bowl-winning coaches. And then I always think about how Miami's education, both the depth and the breadth of it, really enhances that, the basic foundational elements of leadership. And we absolutely love what you do here with the Lilly Institute. It's amazing and and I know when I it's been going on for a long time, so when I see your alums come back, I'm like, Oh my gosh, they're all grown up. They're doing great things, and they're going to be the next on those lists that I just mentioned. But I just want to let our listeners know that we affectionately refer to you as Leader Louise on campus. So we're grateful for all that you do for our students, first and foremost, and all that you do and how well you represent the university and all of our leadership here at the university. So thanks for being with us today.

Louise Morman
Well, thank you so much, and personally, I want to thank you. You've been our biggest supporter all these years. You always participate with our students, so thank you.

President Greg Crawford
Sounded good. Great answers, my goodness. Thanks for listening to this episode of in such a place from Miami University. Stay tuned for more great episodes with more great guests wherever podcasts are found you.