Laurie Butz

I wish my leadership journey hadn't turned seven years ago, but maybe it had turned 20 years ago or 30 years ago. Because I can't imagine the positive impact that I could have had on people. Not just businesses, not just numbers, not just achievements. It could have been on people's lives. And I hope there are people's lives out there that I touched positively. But I know more than anything going forward, I don't ever have to wonder if that's the case. I know that now.

Tim Spiker

This is one of the most important podcast episodes we have ever or will ever record. I'm your host, Tim Spiker, and this is the Be Worth Following Podcast, a production of the PeopleForward Network. On this show, we talk with exceptional leaders, thinkers, and researchers about what actually drives effective leadership across the globe and over time. You just heard from Laurie Butz. She's the CEO and President of Capital Credit Union. A growing credit union with over $2 billion in assets, more than 400 employees and over 110,000 credit union members. I opened by saying this is one of the most important podcast episodes we will ever record. Why do I say this? It's because of the window that Laurie has given us into her life as a leader. During our discussion, she shares with raw and rare transparency, her personal development journey as a leader. And that includes her talking about some attitudes and perspectives that she would be embarrassed to hold today.

But that's just the point. She no longer holds those attitudes and perspectives. At the age of 50, Laurie was successful by every external measure. At work, she was a leader in the company, was making good money, had been consistently promoted throughout her career and was producing good results. At home, she was physically healthy, had a good marriage and a healthy daughter. She had all the things. But internally she was unsatisfied. She didn't feel the fulfillment from her success that she thought she would. So she began to wrestle with that reality. As she did, she was introduced to a leader who was considered by many in the business community as the gold standard of leadership. A leader who has produced exceptional results over the course of multiple decades. Through her relationship with that leader, Laurie began to see the responsibilities and opportunities of leadership in an entirely new light.

Today, she is profoundly more fulfilled and satisfied. And oh, by the way, continues to produce exceptional results. So much so that last year she was promoted to President and CEO from a spot in the executive suite that almost never ends up in the role of president and CEO. So join me as we get a front row seat to Laurie's leadership transformation. I encourage you to listen for the pieces of Laurie's story that sound familiar to your own story. And in the end, you might even consider walking down some of the same roads that Laurie has traveled. Make an investment in listening to this episode. You won't be sorry you did.

Laurie Butz

As I look back to my younger years, I had amazing teachers, amazing coaches that really influenced me to take leadership roles. This is really silly, but I was a really tall young girl. So I think because of my stature, everyone assumed I would just be the leader. And so they put me in those roles all the time. So I think that was pretty instrumental in forming why I took the lead versus just being the follower. But once I got past the teachers and the coaches, it really became college professors. Very impactful. I had a tendency to want to be the teacher's pet. I would do all the extra work. I would do the errands for them. I would grade papers for them. Do all kinds of fun stuff. And then that went into my work world too. Essentially my bosses became my mentors.

And again, I was that teacher's pet. Always trying to be the one doing the extra credit and doing the extra work. I really felt like all of those accomplishments were going to form me. And I used things ... In my mind, it was never satisfied, never enough. I was going to dream big. I was going to do great things. So I was very driven to do that. And it wasn't until I got into the later years of my career that I really started to realize how unsatisfied I was. Looking around collectively, you could say I was successful. I had a great job. I had a great marriage. I had a little girl. Things were going really, really well. I was healthy. And I was just really unsatisfied. Unfulfilled became the word later that I realized after doing deep dives into development of myself. Because I was leading, but I didn't feel like I was a good leader.

I was getting results. I'm going to say that. And this is where a pivotal point when I turned 50 ... And maybe it was, you turn those certain ages and you look back and you go, "Oh my goodness, what did I do right and what did I not do so right?" And one of the things that I realized is at the age 50, I just didn't feel accomplished when I should have for all intents and purposes. And I compared myself to everybody all the time. And it was painful because there's always going to be someone who's smarter and wealthier and has more of whatever it is and that's painful. So it was when I started to feel that pain that it started to manifest itself into maybe a little bit of unhappiness, if you will. And I remember my leader at the time who I was reporting to, she said something to me that made me so angry I thought I was going to lose my mind. But she said, "You're just all out for yourself. It's all about you."

What made me so intensely angry ... I don't even recall responding. I just went home that night and was so infuriated because I felt like I had sacrificed my life for doing all of these things and getting all these results. Whether it be for the companies that I worked for, the teams I was on, just everything. I felt like I sacrificed everything. I worked 24/7. People called me a workaholic all the time. No one could ever say I wasn't a hard worker. But to say I was doing it for myself was just the worst thing someone could say to me because I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm doing it for my bosses, my coworkers, my employees, my family. I'm not happy and you're telling me I'm doing it for myself. If I was doing it for myself, don't you think I would be thrilled with that?"

So that set me on a journey. And I thank God for my husband because I went home that night and he said, "You know what, Laurie? I think I should call Bob Chapman." And Bob Chapman changed my life. My husband worked for Barry-Wehmiller companies and he had a relationship with Bob Chapman, the CEO. He wrote the book, Everybody Matters. And he so generously agreed to meet with me. And we started meeting and this is over six years ago now. Going on seven years. And he just started to share with me the importance of leadership for the right reasons. And the importance of accomplishments for the right reasons. So I started down this path of Simon Sinek and doing the Start With Why and Find Your Why. And my daughter actually did the exercise of Find Your Why with me to try to understand what was my why.

And I did assessments with my team and had them anonymously tell me what words described me as a leader. Because why if I could be this successful leader, did I feel so not successful? And what I realized is the words that I thought had been so important all my life, driven, results, oriented, doer, go getter, dedicated, all those words that I thought, oh, these are great words, were empty. Because they were missing words like loving, caring, kind, nurturing, developing. And those were the words that I wanted people to think of me. And for me to think of me that way. Because one of the exercises I did with my daughter was we had to think back to when was I most happy doing whatever I was doing. And it always landed on when I was either helping to develop others, helping to teach someone something so that they could go off and do it themselves. Or even when I was just being really kind and I had no expectations of getting anything out of it. I was just doing something really nice for someone or somebody or the community or something.

And that's when I realized, that's where the happiness is. That's where the success is. Really just those relationships. And just be yourself and be the best self you can be. But then I started using an R squared methodology and it was R squared stood for relationships and results. And no longer could I just be about results. Because I was. I spent a career being about results. But what I realized, it's the relationships that actually ... And I'll say this freely now that I've worked with people like Steve Jones. I'm free now to love the people I work with. Not to get anything out of them, but to have them get everything that they want to get out of their career, their day, whatever the case might be.

So it was relationships and results and how could I balance the two. Especially when every assessment in the world, ENTJs, DISCs, Predictive Index use words like commander, captain, decisive, dominance. Oh my God. Those words mortify me now. And it was the everybody matters, the be kind, the love one another. Every single person you interact with is somebody's precious child or precious mom or dad or sibling or whatever. And if I can always, always lead with that, put the relationship first, the results will come. And now, I still measure everything and I still make sure I'm getting a job done, but I don't have to ever do it with a heavy hand. I do it with a heavy heart sometimes. I ache more for people than I used to. I pay more attention. I used to be so missile focused. I'd walk through a building of 200 people and not see anyone because I was on a mission. And so I look back and I think back to that cruel day where my boss told me I was all about myself and I can see now why it appeared that way. And I'm really, really thrilled to death that almost seven years later, I don't think people would say that about me anymore.

Tim Spiker

There are so many things, Laurie, in the sharing of that story that are worth us spending some time to unpack and dig in further. And I want to go back a little bit because one of the things that you are doing right now that ... And I've done enough of these discussions that I feel pretty confident in saying you're doing something very rare, which is people in your position don't often feel comfortable to talk about the personal journey that you're talking about. They're a little more guarded. Even if they've gone on that journey, they're like, "I don't know how they're going to feel about me if they hear this." And what you're saying is something happened to you not three decades ago, but seven years ago. Not that long ago. And that you had a significant and successful, by many standards, career leading up to the age of 50, but things have shifted for you since then. So I just want to give people a little bit of a deeper understanding of Laurie pre 50. So talk about those words that you would've championed or valued so much to be said about you. Just tell us a little bit more about how you led and how you thought as a leader previous to seven years ago.

Laurie Butz

I would say that it was goal driven. I have been doing for 32 years on three by five cards, goals.

Tim Spiker