Matt Holland, UVU President, on Lincoln, Confident Humility, Self-Awareness, and Empathy

Show Notes

Matthew Holland is the president of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Under Matt's leadership, UVU has grown rapidly and is now the largest university in the state of Utah. Not only is Matt a leader of a large educational institution, he studied the leadership styles of several political figures as part of his graduate studies and wrote the book, Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity and the Making of America―Winthrop, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

Matt brings great insights on leadership to our first episode of SEEKING EXCELLENCE.

In this episode we cover:

  • The purpose of SEEKING EXCELLENCE.
  • Brett Pinegar's background and a brief intro to his work.
  • Matt's appointment as president of UVU and the confident humility he brings to his work.
  • How Matt has learned about leadership over the years.
  • Abraham Lincoln and his evolution as a leader to become more empathetic and caring.
  • Matt's leadership philosophy and approach, including "having big ears" and the need to recharge.
  • Matt's take on the importance of the skill of organizational agility for  aspiring leaders

You can follow Matt on:

You can follow Brett Pinegar on:

Subscribe to SEEKING EXCELLENCE now and if you love it, rate, review, and if you feel so inclined, please share it with folks you think would be interested.

 

Podcast Transcript

- Lincoln was capable of great self-reflection. I think that was one of his keys as a leader, is he could step back and say I can see myself behaving in a certain way, and I can reflect on that, and I can see I need to change and adapt at some level. That's a remarkable human gift, and he had it, and it's something to be emulated.

- Welcome to SEEKING EXCELLENCE. I'm Brett Pinegar. Professionally, I'm a leadership advisor and organizational consultant. I've also spent more than nine years with my sleeves rolled up as a tech CEO. My mission is to strive to live and lead with excellence, and to help you to do the same. This podcast is for people that want to take their lives and their leadership to the next level, in spite of the challenges they face. They want to continually improve their work, their relationships, and themselves. Entrepreneurs, students, people active in their communities, influencers like you who want to up their game. In this episode, you'll have the opportunity to listen in on my conversation with Matt Holland, the president of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. You're going to love our interview. It's full of ideas and wisdom for all of us about becoming the leader we want to be. First, let me introduce myself and the story behind this podcast. While leading a tech company in 2014, I began to experience the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Thankfully, my symptoms remain mild, however my diagnosis has caused me to step back and reflect on where I want to focus. I've come to more profoundly understand that even though plans, tactics, and many other things are necessary, the foundation of any organization's success flows from people who are striving to do their best. Just a few months ago, I decided to step down and focus my work exclusively on helping leaders and teams be more productive. I do this through training, coaching, and executive peer group programs, and of course this podcast. You can find out more about my work at brettpinegar.com. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram @brettpinegar. Check out the show notes for all the specifics. Now let me introduce you to Matthew Holland, president of Utah Valley University. Matt was appointed to president in 2009, and under his leadership, UVU has adopted a unique educational mission, focused on student success. As a result, it has experienced unprecedented growth, and is now the largest institution of higher education in the state of Utah. In addition to his accomplishments as a leader, much of Matt's graduate work involved the study of leadership approaches of politicians, including Abraham Lincoln, who we'll be talking more about during our discussion. As you listen, you may reflect upon three themes that I noticed. One is the paradox of confident humility. Listen closely as Matt describes his being selected the president of UVU. Another is self-awareness, and why we probably are not as aware as we think we are, and what it takes to cultivate. And finally, why caring deeply about people is the first order of business for every leader. With that, let's dig in. Matt, it is great to be with you.

- So good to see you, Brett. Thank you.

- We've known each other for a long time.

- We go way back. We probably shouldn't divulge much further. It could get us both in trouble.

- You're nearing the end of your tenure here at UVU. You've learned a lot. You've done a lot. What really stands out in your mind as you look back at your tenure?

- Well, the fact that I could do it. I've got to be honest with you, when I first came into this job, I hadn't had a lot of formal academic leadership opportunities, and I think there was a question in a lot of people's mind, and probably in my own, if I'm honest about it, about could you really pull this thing off? And, I think the fact that we've been able to do it and I think we've made some great progress, has been a real learning lesson for me, that I could do it, and that I enjoyed it. That was another thing, is it's one thing to do the job, but did you relish it and find energy in it, and I clearly have. I've loved being the president of Utah Valley University.

- What have you loved the most? What's really been nearest and dearest to your heart?

- Well, first and foremost is the students. They bring an energy to this campus and to my life. I love working with especially that age group. Now, at UVU we have students at all levels of age, and I love that too. We have a lot of adults coming back, second chances for new opportunities in life. Those are great stories, but something about working with 18, 19, 20 year-old people who are just now mature enough to realize they've got to get serious about life, but still young enough that they're looking for inspiration and direction and hope. Working with them is so exhilarating. And then, the second thing I have to say is, being part of, watching, and helping to shape a very large organization, take on a particular direction and a cast, and a set of achievements, that's just been a really fun thing to be part of.

- Well, it wasn't long before you joined UVU that it became a university.

- That's right. We'd been, originally, a technical college, and a community college, a state college. We'd just become a university the year before I took office, and I think the big question was, okay, you're a university. What kind of university? And, I think what we've been able to do the last nine years is answer that question, and do it in a way that I think was unique and innovative, and has really led to a lot of growth and success.

- You mentioned a few minutes ago that this was a chance, a chance for you to step up, to prove yourself as a leader, where you hadn't had a lot of academic leadership experience prior to this. What do you think prepared you for that? Were there heroes that you looked to, or people that you looked to in your life that would represent ideals that you strive for?

- I think it's a great question, and I think, if you polled the regents and others who made the decision, is one of the things that they looked at was, yeah, he's not been a department chairman or a dean or vice president, but he's clearly kind of steeped himself in leadership, studying it, thinking about it, working with people who are leaders. And, one of the things that I've discovered in this process and that has helped me, is that I've learned from a whole slew of very different leaders, folks who had different styles, different approaches. And I learned that leadership can come in very different forms, and that what I needed to do is find my own form that was an amalgam of things that I learned from other people and just my own intuitions about it. So, for me, it starts probably with my father. He's a great leader. He was his own academic leader. He was a university president. Now, when people hear that, they think, oh, well, you were destined or that you were programmed or trained. I never thought I would be a university president growing up. I watched my dad. I thought, I don't want that job. But life is quirky, how it turns out, and it was a unique opportunity, both because of his role, of watching him as a university president, but also he's a noted ecclesiastical leader in the LDS church, serving in the Quoram of the Twelve. He's just had such a powerful influence on my life. To show me how to lead with love, with integrity, with a hope and a faith, for good things to happen. I think about him a lot in that role. But, he's really just the starting point. I can think of our mutual friend, Mark Fuller, watching him create Monitor Group out of nothing, more or less, into a large, international consulting firm. And, I was able to work with him in the office. He's a very different man than my father, as you know, but I learned a lot from watching him set the mission vision values of Monitor Group, which I was able to help with, was a powerful learning lesson for me, that I drew upon. But I didn't get a Duke graduate school, I didn't get it as part of a PhD program. I was drawing on those Monitor experiences when I came here to say, what kind of a university are we going to be and how do we articulate that, and how do we get the whole institution to buy in.

- So, you talked a little bit about plans, Mark being a great example, building plans, connecting it to vision, purpose, those sorts of things, but down into the practical, tactically, how do we do it. And then, you compare that to the values, or the love, or the authenticity that your father has.

- Right.

- Two complementary things. There's nothing very different about them, except when the plans and your love for people collide.

- Yes.

- And sometimes that happens.

- It does, regularly, especially in a university.

- Indeed, I can only imagine. So, as you think about that collision, what stands out, and what have you learned about leadership in the colliding of the reality of running an organization with the feelings you have for the people in it?

- Well, it's a great question, and I'll answer it by looking to another exemplar, if you will. So, my graduate work, and my early academic professorial work, was on the thinking and the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. And, talk about a guy who had to deal with collision.

- Indeed.

- This was a guy who somehow, at the end of all of this civil war, and all of these boiling acids between all the different parties, stands up at the second inaugural and says, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." And somehow, he was able to maintain that compassion, and that sense of... I'm not gonna hate people, I'm really gonna try to love people, and yet, let us strive to finish the work we are in. We gotta finish this war.

- The war's not done.

- There is a right and a wrong side here, but we've gotta make sure the right thing happens, we've gotta hold people accountable, I've got to have generals who fight. And, that is just a very tough kind of push and pull, if you will, and the only thing that I've concluded is that the answer is that you're committed to both. You're committed to trying to keep that moral compass that says I don't want my heart to get corroded, I don't want to become bitter, I don't want to hate people, but I also have a job to do. I've got to think through the issues. I've got to try to get the right thing to happen. And, every day is a constant battle to hold those two things together, back and forth.

- Well, I've read part of your book, read an article that you wrote about the book, and about Lincoln and his progression as a leader. You had mentioned one of his early speeches in the book and in the article, about how he was very much a rule-maker. Rules are important. It's the rule of law that drives everything. Even if they're bad rules, just for the sake of the institution, better to keep the rules. And then, you talk about his evolution as a leader, where there was something there to balance that, in the sense of compassion or charity, that you mentioned here. What do you think brought that about?

- Well, it's curious. Lincoln was capable of great self-reflection. I think that was one of his keys as a leader, is he could step back and say I can see myself behaving in a certain way, and I can reflect on that, and I can see I need to change and adapt, at some level. That's a remarkable human gift, and he had it, and it's something to be emulated. So, as he did a self-reflection, I think he looked at people around him that he admired, I think he turned to various sources, including religion resources. He became a much greater reader of the Bible, if you will. He never became, as he said, quote, a technical Christian, was never baptized, or became an official member of a church, but he saw something morally profound in the teachings of Jesus Christ, that he thought were missing from his early, more rationalist, kind of enlightenment, reasoned, law-based, way of looking at the world. Now, he never gave that former part up. To the very end, he was a lawyer. He argued the Emancipation Proclamation was on these very rationalistic grounds about the rule of law and constitutional jurisprudence, but, as you said, he added to that this greater capacity of compassion and understanding and feeling, to balance the rational, legalistic side of things, that made him that much more of a powerful leader.

- You talk about self-awareness being at the core of maybe what enabled that, that there was a self-awareness, and maybe even, below that, a humility. Do you think that that humility flowed from some of his weaknesses? He's known to have had depression or, at least, that's what many people think. To what degree did his humanity, his weaknesses, actually enable him to become a better leader, because he was maybe a little more aware of his feelings?

- I think that's clearly one of the separators for Lincoln. You know, it takes a certain sort of hubris to be the president of the United States, to say, hi, I want to rule over all of the rest of you. I'm that smart, and I'm that good, you know. And that's why you tend to see these attributes of hubris in that role, but Lincoln, somehow, had the confidence to say I think I can do this, I think I should do this, but he was always aware, and painfully aware, of his limitations. He was aware of his physical appearance, he knew that he got made fun of for, tall, gangly, homely-looking guy. He knew the kind of demons in his own mind, with depression and discouragement, that he just had to kind of gut it out. He had a tough marriage by that point, that was not a lot of source of comfort and consolation, and I think all of that just made him a more sensitive soul. It made him more patient with people. Sometimes people argued he was maybe even too patient. He kind of let things go longer than he needed to, but I think often that came from the sense of they're sort of who they are, I'm sort of who I am, and we just gotta work together. Somehow, that didn't immobilize him. He still was able to be a strong leader when he absolutely had to be strong, but it softened him in a way that was absolutely critical for holding together this thing that was just bursting at the seams. Not just North and South, but within his own cabinet, within his own family and friend structure, and because of that sort of self-awareness of his own limitations, he was able to hold people together and say, we're in this together. You've got weaknesses, I've got weaknesses. Let's figure out a way to make it work together.

- So, self-awareness, humility. He had it, in fact, not only did he have it, but he surrounded himself with people that were frank and direct, because they disliked him, or were, in fact, opposed to his views, in many cases. I mean, the Doris Kerns Goodwin book, Team of Rivals, was all about this concept of Lincoln surrounding himself with people that were not like him in any way. Let's now bring those ideas, of the idea of self-awareness, the idea of surrounding yourself with people that think differently, to your own leadership style. What do you do to make sure you're not missing the big picture in your corner office here, not seeing things as they really are?

- One of the questions I know sometimes is out there is why does Holland have this person close, or in this position or that position. They don't seem like him. And again, what I've learned, and I've learned it from Lincoln and his kind of team of rivals inside, but I'm better off if I get a fuller picture, and I'm more likely to get a fuller picture if I am surrounded by people who don't see things exactly like I see them. Sometimes that can be annoying, it's like the pebble in the shoe, but other times it's like, no, I'd have missed that if I hadn't had that person with that lens in the room, helping to speak up. So, I do not like yes-men, yes-women. I like people who will speak their mind. Now, at some point, there are limits to that too. You've gotta have some degree of collegiality, and some degree of, you know, we're a team and we want to move this forward, but I think consciously cultivating folks around you who bring in different perspectives, different attitudes, and are not afraid to speak those to me has been absolutely critical to the success we've had here at UVU.

- What do you do at that juncture where you need to go from the arguing to the committing? How do you orchestrate or choreograph that transformation? Because there is a point to what you want to have, discussion, open, free dialogue, and then three's a point where the decision needs to be made, either it's by consensus, either it's by a unilateral, sort of dictatorial, this is what we're gonna do, or something in between.

- So, part of it starts before you even get there. It starts with, even though we're going to have differences of opinion in application, in day-to-day decision-making, do we at least all have enough of a philosophical commitment to what it is we want to achieve? If you've got that foundation right, at the 30,000 foot level, what are the core values, what's the mission in the vision of the institution? A team, that's varied and differentiated, that's operated off that similar foundation, that's where I think the real power comes. If you have those foundational cracks and dissension, then you've got big problems. I'm not sure, I think Lincoln may have had to deal with that himself. At least here at UVU, we've made sure that the folks have those core themes, core aspirations down, and then we can disagree, and then we can disagree, and get to the point to say, okay, we don't have consensus. A decision has to be made. I'm the decision-maker. Here's what we do moving forward. Hopefully, over time, what people will see is Holland isn't deciding always in favor of one advisor versus another, and more often than not, we achieve consensus, and the overall arc of things suggests everybody's just trying to make their best-faith effort to make decisions in a world of imperfect information, but predicated on a common vision about what we're trying to achieve.

- Love it, love it. I think that is critical to the success of any organization, a family, a school, a business of any sort here, especially, I imagine the people that are listening to the podcast today are wondering, well, I've got this unique situation here where it's me and my brother. There are a lot of family-run businesses in the country. I mean, most businesses are owned by families, where it's a little harder to say good-bye. You've gotta work through things in the same way that Lincoln had to work through things and others have to work through things. What have you found when there's a disagreement with somebody, but where you need to keep the relationship intact? Are there any ideals or philosophies or approaches you use to guide those kind of very sensitive conversations?

- Well, I know there's a whole literature out there on this, and I've dabbled in this school of thought and that school of thought, but a lot of it's just something I've developed over time, in terms of my own value system and what I think is the right thing to do. It starts by being committed to candor, and I think you really do people a disservice when you're not candid. And this can take on geographics. There are parts of the world that are more candid than others. Orem, Utah is not New York City.

- Or Moscow, Russia?

- Exactly. So, some places it's easier to be candid, and maybe easier to be too candid. I'll get to that in just a minute, but at least in the context of UVU or Orem, Utah, in this environment, we've had a kind of culture-building. We've got to level with each other when we see problems, and we've got to learn to give feedback to each other. We've set up some structural mechanisms for doing that, some feedback loops, and some accountability mechanism, so that, at least once a year, but usually more often than that, there's a chance to say, here's an issue, and here's how you're dealing with it, and this is why this is a problem.

- Let's pause right there. Does that flow 360? Are you getting that feedback as well?

- Yes, yes. Part of it's manufactured, if you will, by the regents who have oversight, who collect information from those who report to me. Some of it's invited by myself, to say that I want the input about what can I do better, where do we have areas that we need to improve on, what do I need to do better to help you carry out your role.

- So, when you get that feedback, and your team sees you respond to it. How does that enhance trust, if it does? Is their observation of you and your handling that feedback here as president of the university changed the way they view you, or deepened the relationships they have with you?

- I think so. One of the early compliments that I took, was after one of these formal reviews, again, multiple kinds of sources of review and feedback, but after one of the formal reviews, one of the things that the regent said that my team said, is that he has big ears. What they meant is he listens to us, and responds accordingly. Now, some of that's just, substantively, well, what should we do, and I'm listening to their ideas. But, I think it was also the here are things that you could do better, or here's an area where we're just not hitting it in the right way, and I made adjustments. And, I think that, especially coming from the outside, without a lot of administrative experience, that gave a lot of reassurance to the team, this is someone we can work with, this is someone who is not just out telling us what to do all the time, but is open to feedback, and instruction and self-improvement. I think that did a lot early on to build trust, that built that teamwork dynamic that we've sailed on ever since.

- That's fantastic. You know, we talked about how Lincoln's leadership mindset changed over time. How has yours changed? What are some of the new ideas or different philosophies or approaches that you use now, toward the end of your tenure as opposed to the beginning of your tenure?

- Well, one of the things I've learned and appreciated are what I call the sort of rhythms or seasons of leadership. When I first started, I thought I had to do everything, all the time, day in and day out, month after month, and what I've learned is that's not sustainable, at least in a job like this. So, I have learned that, not only do I need to, but I can pick and choose seasons where sometimes I have to be more focused on the external side of things, donors and legislators. But then, I have to kind of make up for that and loop back and say I've got some internal work I need to do. I've gotta work with faculty or staff or my own team, so I'm gonna neglect some things. And then, you throw the family into the mix, and sometimes I just have to say, I know things would go better professionally, I know I would do a better job as president of UVU if I were at this event or that event, but I'm gonna go to the parent/teachers conference, or I'm gonna go for a week in spring break, in April, which is the busiest season of time for me. And I know I'm gonna pay a little bit of a price, but I'm not gonna sacrifice my family, and being a good family man has made me a better leader, so I'm borrowing here to pay for it there, but then I borrow there to go pay for it here.

- So, what you're what you're really talking about is not balance in the moment, but balance over time.

- Exactly. And that, I think, has been one of the biggest shifts for me, compared to that first year where, literally, I just thought that I had to be everywhere all the time, and I couldn't do it.

- But, I'm also hearing a sense of that you could do enough, and that you could do more than enough, and that finding that right level... Where do you red line? Where's the right optimal zone for Matt Holland to be functioning? It sounds like you've really tuned that as well. So, you took a sabbatical.

- Yes.

- I don't know if that's unusual for university presidents or not, but very exciting.

- So that's, again, one of those moments where you have to read where the needle is. I qualified for a sabbatical after six years. I didn't take it. We were in the throes of one of our biggest legislative battles, we were in high-growth, low- resource mode, there were gaps we had to close. I just felt it would have been irresponsible for me to go away. Year seven came around, still the same thing. I just felt like it was too busy, but by year eight, it's like, okay, we got through those big hurdles, we've got a good team in place. Now, not only can I go away, I think it would be a good thing to go away. And, one of the lessons for me in this, Brett, was not only was it a great thing for me, personally, it was great for my team, for them to learn they could function without me for three months, more or less. I really checked on them. I maybe got four or five emails, the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs called me the first week I was gone, asked me about a fairly sensitive question, I'm like, take care of it. And he said, when you did that I got the message, like, okay, we're doing this. They got through three months, and it was great. Now, it's not like, well, you were superfluous, you didn't need to come back. There were things that needed to be attended to and needed my oversight, but it was great for them, for me to go away, and it was certainly great for me to recharge my batteries intellectually, have time with my family. Spiritually, emotionally, I mean it was just a really powerful thing to do.

- How do we transform what you were able to do in a university environment to leaders out there that may not be able to take a formal sabbatical in their normal business? What advice would you give to people that need a break?

- Well, I do think there's value in a couple of principles. One is truly unplugging. The problem with our technological world is we, quote, take breaks, but we take our whole world with us. We take our cell phones and our laptops, we're on email every day, and I think you've gotta have that time where, if it's not three months... So, when we say sabbatical, I was only gone three months. Typically, a sabbatical is six to eight months. I couldn't have done that, so I had to collaborate that. Other CEO's or what-not might not have been able to do three months, but can you do two weeks? Can you do three weeks? And, truly unplug, maybe with that rarest of exceptions. But also, to geographically relocate. Go somewhere different. Put yourself in a different setting. Not necessarily a vacation setting, it could be a professional development setting, but go somewhere where you're talking to different people, you're looking at a different landscape, you're reading different literature. Those are the things I think you need to do to really spark creativity, and frankly, we've come back and there've been a whole slew of things, including, we're going to be hosting a national summit on the dual mission institution that UVU has become, and we've got the heads of the systems from Wisconsin and Georgia coming, governors from other states, looking like their participating. It's gonna be quite a big deal, and that would never have come to me had I not gotten out of my context in a different set of interlocutors, a different set of readings, and it's just spawned a whole new thing for us, moving forwards.

- Fantastic. I've got some random questions here that are kind of meant to bring us towards a close. And, I just want you to think about these. So, think about these questions here. There all sort of one versus another thing, and you may say they're bull, but really try and picture, say am I more X or am I more Y, as you think about these. Are you more likely to lead from the front or from the back?

- You're probably looking for crisp answers.

- No, these are complicated. It's the gray zone.

- I think I'm more inclined to lead from the front, but I think people who would assess me on that would say that I would spend a lot of time in the back listening first. But then there comes a time where you've got to step out and be the guy when there's uncertainty and say, this is where we're going.

- Great, great. Are you a big picture person or an in-the-details person?

- More big picture than in the details, although I got a little feedback early on that I might have been a little too in the details up front. I clearly still like to have my hands on the levers at some level, to make sure the big picture becomes real. My biggest interest, I think, is the big picture.

- Are you more of a risk-lover or a risk-averse person?

- Well, all academics are risk-averse, by nature, but I think, within that sort of milieu, I'm a risk-taker, I think. We've done some things differently here, and I think we have to. I think education, in particular, is in this kind of moment of upheaval, and we've had to do things different, and I think by those standards, I'm a risk-taker.

- Great. Would you describe yourself as internally or externally motivated?

- I think more internally motivated.

- And, where does that internal motivation flow from?

- A lot of it comes from my faith, a belief that God has given me both a set of gifts and opportunities that I'm expected to make the most of. Now, are there external incentives and accentuators? Of course, but deep down inside, I want to do the best I can possibly do with what heaven has provided me, and report accordingly.

- What's your communication style? Are you more of a direct, candid communicator, or more the indirect?

- I think I tend to be a diplomatic communicator, so I try to make things as smooth and artful as possible. But I think it's not diplomatic in the sense of avoiding the hard conversations. It's diplomatic, most of the time, but candid when it needs to be.

- Thick-skinned or sensitive?

- Probably somewhere in the middle. I take a lot of criticism in this job, and I've learned to just kind of let it roll off my back, if you will. I also know people who are more thick-skinned than I am. They don't even think about it, when I probably come home, like, uh, that wasn't really a lot of fun, but I'm back at it the next day and don't worry about it too much.

- So, let's wrap up with the aspiring leader, somebody who wants to become a better leader, maybe a current employee you view, or another academic institution. What advice would you give them? What's the key to success in this particular kind of environment?

- Well, I think there are a few things that are vital. One is that it starts with the vision thing, you know, to quote George Bush. Do you have a picture for what a university can be, should be? Do you have a vision for your role in that as a leader? You've got to have something like that moving forward, but beyond that, there's some things in a university setting, especially a public university setting, something we haven't talked about. There's a skill set I refer to as organizational agility. There are so many different constituencies in an environment like this, so you've gotta worry about the faculty culture, you've gotta worry about a staff culture, you've gotta think about student life, you've gotta think about legislators, that have a public responsibility. You've got trustees that you answer to. You've got donors, who have their own dynamic, and then you've got administrators, senior administrators. Each one of these groups have a different flavor and style and preferred approach, and the people who prosper the most in a leadership setting at a university, or a place like UVU, are people who can move between the different groups, and adjust accordingly. You kind of learn to talk and work one way, and it's not that you're being insincere, you just learn there are different ways of doing business with each of these categories, and you've gotta have that agility to move between all of them, up and down and horizontally. I think that's one thing that gets missed the most, is that people have a vision, they're bright, they want to commit to it, but they haven't quite figured out how to move between the different constituencies.

- Interesting. I think that whether it's in a university setting or large corporations, there are lots of stakeholders, and it's about how you manage your passions to get things done in that environment, knowing that there are many different perspectives and needs and desires that everyone has here.

- That's a perfect phrase, managing your own passions, because you may think, I've got a set of ideas, I've got a certain style, it could serve me well, I'm successful, I'm smart, I should just be able to do that all the time, every day, everywhere. Certainly, what I think people learn when they come to UVU, is they have to learn to adjust and adapt and evolve, if you will, depending on who they're talking to, and when, if they're really going to get their passions implemented and achieved.

- I think that's great advice for anybody, anywhere. Their passions, it can become, overzealous in their passions, we're in danger of them becoming nothing but dreams, because we don't think practically about how to make things happen. You've made things happen here, Matt. This has been a great opportunity to sit down with you and discuss what you've been able to accomplish here. What's next for you?

- Well, I've been called to be a mission president for the LDS church. This wasn't something we were expecting, but we're absolutely delighted with it. My faith means everything in the world to me. We're going to go to Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where I did graduate school at Duke, so it's a little bit like going home. That's only a three-year assignment. After that, who knows what? This is sort of a moment of adventure. I've always been such a planner, trying to think through what's next, but we really could do a host of things when we come back. Certainly, education would be an area that we might get back into. There was some talk in the community about public service. That could be a possibility. I have loved working with the business community and seeing the vitality and the creativity in what they do for economic development and creating wealth and opportunities for the citizens. So, maybe I'll do something altogether different and do that. We're just in for an adventure right now, and we've got our next phase ahead of us, and who knows what after that?

- Well, that's kind of exciting. That's the risk-loving part of Matt Holland. How do people follow you, keep track of what you're doing, keep in touch with you?

- Well, I have not been the world's greatest social media guy, with the exception, I tweet. That's my way to kind of stay connected with the students. But I have told my wife and others, now that I'm kind of shifting out of this very public role, if people wanna follow a little bit more of our kind of private role, and our leadership, in terms of what we're doing next, I'm committed to being more of a Facebooker. So, think people could track that way, and we'll try to keep people updated on it. Good, and we'll include all that information in the show notes, so people know how to follow you there.

- Great.

- Matt, it's been an honor.

- Well, thank you, Brett. You're a great friend. You've been that since high school. I've learned a lot from you. Your listeners may not know this, but we were office mates together at that Monitor Group experience, and from high school to post-college life, you've been an inspiration to me, and I wish you best with this podcast and all that you're doing. I think it's a terrific service. Leadership makes all the difference in the world. We don't know enough about it. We need to help each other develop that more, and I see this as a powerful tool for doing that.

 

Leader InterviewsBrett Pinegar