Growing up in Hawai’i, Lovey Peissig knew about Minnesota mainly from Spam and tourists who weren’t afraid of the cold. If people were out swimming at O’ahu’s North Shore beach before noon (when the water is a bit chilly), the locals assumed they must be from Minnesota. Now, when Lovey goes back to Hawai’i to visit family, her Minnesotan kids dive right in. “They’re the first ones in the water,” she says. “They don't even test the temperature first.”
Lovey moved to Minnesota to attend the University of Minnesota as a graduate student, studying cultural identities and psychology. She’s called Minnesota home ever since. After receiving her doctorate in 2016, she joined OHR’s Talent Strategy Center of Expertise, helping leaders at the University grow and refine their skills.
What is a leader?
In her role on the Leadership Development team (part of the Talent Strategy Center of Expertise), Lovey works with leaders to help define what leadership means to them. “It's not uncommon for someone to ask, ‘Well, what's the definition of leadership?’” says Lovey, noting it’s not that simple. “[We give] people the opportunity to explore existing models” and learn from them. After working with Lovey’s team, leaders often move from trying to find a singular definition of leadership to considering who they want to be as a leader.
Leadership, identity, and personal narrative
From there, leaders can consider how leadership and identity are linked. This includes shaping their personal narrative to become the leader they want to be. “The process of generating a narrative gives people a sense of meaning, purpose, [and] understanding of self,” Lovey says. “[A narrative] is who I am and who I am becoming.” This narrative changes yearly or even monthly, so leaders benefit from regular re-examination.
A strong sense of self also “helps people feel some sense of stability or cohesion when things are challenging,” per Lovey. Additionally, diving deep into identity and core values can help leaders (and anyone) understand why particular situations may be difficult for them.
Lovey enjoys working with cohorts of leaders to “witness each other’s growth and development” and learn from each other. She and her team facilitate this through group discussions, panels, and simulation scenarios that help leaders try new approaches. She also shares that working with other leaders can help someone identify themself as a leader.
Providing space for feedback and reflection
The Leadership Development team doesn’t just focus on the positives. Lovey knows we’ve all experienced ineffective leaders at some point in our lives. Another part of her team’s work is to help leaders separate their internal perspective from how others view their actions. A “gift” of the programming is that it gives people “opportunities to reflect or get feedback” on the outcomes of their actions, she says.
Honest self-examination after receiving feedback is crucial for leadership development. Lovey says that the hybrid work environment has created a better atmosphere for this. “Hybrid environments just help people feel safe enough to dig deep,” she says. Lovey points out that prior to 2020, leaders would have a “professionally intimate conversation” and then go back to their bustling workspace without time or space to digest.
Bridging theory and practice
Lovey holds more than one position at the University. As an adjunct professor, she teaches Self, Society, and Health, a class she once took as a graduate student. “It keeps me sharp,” she says of its influence on her role in Talent Strategy. She also appreciates the direct line she has with students through the class.
As a full-time staff member and part-time academic, Lovey can help contextualize the key concerns students have about their futures, whether they plan to work in the corporate world or pursue a career in academia. “The joy in the class is giving people frameworks … and examin[ing] things through a psychological lens about work. I think it gives them some element of maybe not certainty, but stability.” She says the coursework helps explain to students “why things are feeling stressful, exciting, [and] fun all at once.”
Lovey enjoys teaching theories, concepts, and research, and her lived experience in the working world enables her to share their practical application in the workplace. Her academic role helps her keep an eye on broader trends that she can then bring back to the Leadership Development team.
Leadership in higher education
Lovey says that staying connected with students and new scholarship in the field is one way higher education differs from other industries. “You don’t have to sway people to want to learn,” she says.
A challenge in higher education is the industry’s “complexity that, most of the time, is a gift,” says Lovey. Between University campuses, colleges, and units, there’s no “one size fits all,” she explains. “[My clients] are all leaders with collective shared goals and values, but their wisdom and own trajectories vary just by their academic discipline alone,” she notes. While it can feel “chaotic” not to have off-the-shelf trainings to hand out, she and her team work to “appreciate the uniqueness” while bringing leaders together to recognize their similarities and learn from each other. The team also customizes its approach for each client based on the frameworks that would work best for the situation.
The University has provided a supportive environment for Lovey’s own professional growth as well. “I feel lucky that … [I’m] literally surrounded by supervisors, mentors, and colleagues who intrinsically care about developing people and have cared about developing me,” Lovey says. She was promoted to a management position in 2021 and is passionate about helping her direct reports grow in their roles.