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Interview Transcript

Sally Foley-Lewis

Hi, Sally Foley Lewis here. And I’m so excited to have a conversation with Dr. Karina Butera, um, about this whole idea of self-leadership and really excited to hear from a master coach around her thoughts on what self leadership is. Um, so Karina, welcome to the spark series. It’s absolute pleasure to have you here.

Dr Karina Butera

Really excited about.

Sally

Yeah. So as you know, I’m diving into this whole arena of self-leadership and, and wanting to hear from senior leaders, such as yourself around what does self leadership mean to you and, and really diving into that rabbit hole. So let’s kick it off and, and tell me, what does self leadership mean to you?

Karina

Yeah, when you pose this question to me, I kind of wanted a bit, um, and I think to me, the destination definition of someone who is self-lead is someone who knows their core purpose known as their core values and lives their life by them and lets those things lead them. Um, but being driven, committed discipline towards meeting the core purpose. And so it’s going to be different for everybody. I don’t, I don’t think there’s a formula. I think, you know, let’s say for example, your purpose is to make a million dollars. Well then you’re going to be driven to get up in the morning and check the stock exchange and you know, um, maybe be really ruthless. But if your purpose is to bring kindness to the world, then that’s going to look really different on how you act and how you go about that.

Sally

Yeah. It’s a values, values led, which goes into behaviour, which goes into that cycle background to who you are and how you want to lead yourself. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And so, um, what do you think the impact self-leadership has on someone’s confidence or their influence or their courage?

Karina

Um, I think you have to have a level of self-confidence to be selfless. Um, and, and I think the more wins you have on the board, the easier that is. So I think it’s probably a lot harder when you’re first entering the workforce. Although conversely, I think when you’re young, you’re quiet, you’re courageous anyway, you’re plucky. I see young people that particularly young people now that aren’t afraid to speak out. And I know when I was younger, I was bolshy. Um, I’m a lot more political politically correct. And, you know, keep my mouth shut. Well then my colleagues might disagree with that. Um, yeah, no, I mean, I remember as an example, when my very first job we must have been tain, um, there was, uh, uh, our boss that we all reported to and it was in a bank, so it was all women like 95% women and then the men and the offices and, um, and one of the main, and the offices was particularly touchy feely with the girls.

Karina

And this is going back to, you know, the early 1990s where that was kind of the norm, but there was this kind of, you know, bursting off feminism. And I didn’t even consider myself a feminist back then, but I used to really rattle me when he come up behind me and had his arm across me and you would see him slapping other girls thumbs and things like that. And it was really inappropriate. And, uh, we had a telephone once and, um, we were, it was a light thing. There were drinks and we were counting for the telephone then pizzas and all that. So it was very social and we were all working late. And so he was a little bit more out of line than usual and was being very personal with one of the girls in particular. And that I learned a very valuable lesson that day because he was a topic of conversation for all the women in the tea room, in the mornings and the afternoons like, Oh God, who’s been touched by him today. And everyone hated this. So I go onto my power stance and said, excuse me, Mr. Blahdeblah. Um, do you realise that what you’re doing is really inappropriate and you shouldn’t be doing that. And I said that in front of all of the staff and there was just dead silence. And I, then I looked to my Conrad’s and said, isn’t that right, ladies? We don’t like it. Well,

Sally

You’ve been left alone right there.

Karina

Can you imagine younger if I get a Karina? Yeah, no, no one did. Everyone looked at the ground, turned around, shut mumbled, walked away and all was left standing the guy, what just happened? I thought everybody hated this. And I live a value valuable career career, listen, baby. You know, it wasn’t long before I start getting very seriously performance managed by him. Um, but I think when you’re young, I think you’re a lot more idealistic and, and a bit more vocal as you get older. And this might not be a great thing, but I think you’ll learn to play the politics a little bit more. And, um, but yeah, yeah. Got it. And the confidence thing, I think, yeah, confidence builds over time and appropriate confidence builds over time.

Sally

It’s interesting that the story you just shared and thank you for sharing it, but wouldn’t it be nice that that same courage KA, you know, comes with you over your years? I’m not saying it hasn’t, but, but you can certainly see in some situations for some leaders where, um, maybe in your early twenties there guns blazing, no filter full on, you know, it goes from here to here before they’ve even thought about it and, and got themselves into a clear career limiting move. And, um, and I just would love that that same amount of courage came through everyone’s career. And I’ve seen people who actually, they, they learn a little bit more diplomacy, a bit more maturity, a bit more experienced, tells you when to pick your battles, but it’s almost like some battles just don’t get picked anymore. And there are some of the battles that really should still be picked. Um, so yeah, it’s interesting. I, you know, um, how long did you start in the bank after that?

Karina

I think it was only a couple more moms, but yeah, I actually was planning. That was, um, you know, that was back in New Zealand and, and I was saving to come to Australia at that time anyway. So it was only ever going to be a short term thing until my site’s enough money to jump the ditch.

Sally

So did you, did you actually affect change in him?

Karina

I think it’s a good question. Um, I, I think he was a bit more subdued. Yes. I think that he did walk around a bit more with his hands behind his back. So maybe, maybe he realised maybe he, I don’t know, even got some coaching or maybe the man, the bank manager. Cause he was the accountant. So he’s too IC. Maybe that got back to him and maybe there was a little word. Um, he said he changed his attitude towards me, but that was okay.

Sally

Yeah. I think some, sometimes it’s okay for people not to like us.

Karina

We realised that after that. Okay. He’s not gonna be, I’m not gonna be flavour of the month for him anymore. So I just put that.

Sally

Yeah. So I guess it’s, uh, you know, your thoughts on the impact self leadership has on the value of your work is really important then isn’t it. So if you look at that example, um, even though no one in the, in the break room sort of stood up for you and high-fived you and everyone was more than willing for you to be the solo volunteer to, um, take it for the team, what impact do you think it had for the rest of the team for the, for the other women, especially?

Karina

Um, well, it was interesting because I did, and I don’t know how this relates in, but it was, I did get taken into the fold more. Um, I, you know, things that the historical background a little bit, um, and secrets that others knew got told to me, so I could understand the situation a bit more turned out that the woman he was particularly cozy with, he was having an affair with. So, you know, just the eighties, you know,

Karina

I think, um, I think the lesson that I got out of it, and it comes back to self leadership is that I trust my battles from that point forward and only really unmoved from that very early age. Do you not take it from the team without Fisk consulting and without having a plan of action. And, um, and, and it comes back to self leadership. If it’s important to you, do it, speak to it, but do it from your voice, do not speak for other people. And, and I think that’s important for a whole bunch of reasons because I’ve had other people in the pasture, dumb it to me and say, you know, this is what’s going on. And this is what we think isn’t that right? Corinne or Corina said this. And suddenly it’s like, hang on, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I don’t want to be born into this because that could be taken out of context. So, um, I think self-leadership has you have to be prepaid, I think, to stand in your own space in your own value set. Yeah.

Sally

And your own power. Yeah, definitely. And that’s responsibility, isn’t it? It’s tough. This is my issue. I’m owning this issue and I, and maybe I need help from others with this, but, um, I’m, I’m only can only speak about this for me right now. If others are, you know, the, the door is open and I invite others, if it, if it’s relevant, but yeah, right now it’s for me, from me to you. So yeah.

Karina

So you said then about, I might need help with this, you know, I think I like the fact that yes, you know, you’re owning, um, that your experience might not be experienced by other people. And, and I’ve had times where I’ve been prepared to walk away from jobs because I’ve had an issue about a particular thing going on within the culture, or it might’ve been, you know, something that was happening that everyone else was okay with. And when I went to my manager about it and next time, this is what I’m experiencing, this is what I’m feeling. Um, and, and I, and I’ve reflected on it a lot. And I can’t see the culture changing to be the sort of culture that I’m going to fit in with. So on, on the odd person out. So the best thing for this is for me to leave and find a culture that’s going to fit my personality and my value sit better in that space. You’re honouring yourself and, um, you’re not going around expecting the world to change. Right.

Sally

Absolutely. Yeah. And I’m with you on that. I think there’s giving up too early, you know, there’s always, I think there’s, you’ve really got to test the waters and see, is this me? Or is this something else? But if it’s definitely, you’re the odd one out, and you can see that there’s from every effort from out of your toolkit, you’ve done everything you can to fit. Then part of yourself, leadership is absolutely honouring who you are and how you want to be seen to be leading yourself as well as how you do lead yourself. So yeah, if it’s time to go, it’s time to go. I think that’s, that’s the healthiest way in a lot of ways. So yeah, that’s a thing too. That it’s,

Karina

It was the one thing I’ve noticed over the years is your strongest position. You’re going to come and show as a negotiator is having no emotional vested interest in whatever it is that you’re going for, whether it’s a job or whether it’s, what have you, if, if you’re going for, and you’re thinking to yourself, okay, this could be the right job for me, but maybe it’s not, um, for it to be the right job for me, it would have to have this, this, this, this, this happening for me. So you go in there and you, you say, you know, um, I’m not saying that this is what the John warrants, but this is what it would have to have in it for me to be one wanting to apply for it. And they do that in that job. So,

Sally

Um, yeah, and I think that’s a good example where you’ve got people who are, who are absolutely stuck in a, in a job that they’re so misaligned with and they’re, they’re burning out. They’re starting to get the starting to become unhealthy, um, physically, emotionally, and intellectually unhealthy in all different ways. And you can see them running to job ads as a, as an a Skype, which is just going from the pain to the far, as far as I’m concerned and not actually taking the time to say that my next move has to be in alignment with my values. Just like you were saying, my next move has to bring me joy. I have to bring it my joy as well. It’s not one way. Um, my next job has to have, um, inaction these, these values, not just the plaque on the wall and those ugly posters on the wall, but the actual values in action, um, that are aligned with who I am.

Sally

So, yeah. Thank you for that. I think that’s, uh, you know, you raise a really good point about that. I just wonder, you know, we’re talking about some of the negative things, so maybe there’s been an event and maybe it was COVID 19, um, that through you or, or someone, you know, um, and it sort of what I’m getting at is I’m really curious about how do we reignite the spark when we’ve lost it. You know, when we, when we feel as though, um, we’ve lost our self leadership, or we’ve lost our way a little bit, how do we reignite it? And, um, I’d love to know how, and what are the lessons you’ve learned if it’s you or someone, you know, or

Karina

Yeah, well, I certainly have plenty of my online, but, um, one, an example that comes to mind is, um, there was a client that I worked with a long time ago and, um, and I see this happening a lot out there and what my experiences is, um, often times, and especially in large organisations, they might be attained, that’s seen as dysfunctional or part of the culture that is saying as lazy, weary, whatever. And so they’re bringing a really strong change agent. And basically you’ve been the task. The organisation’s lagging is knowing your enthusiasm. The culture is resurrected and this particular client of mine, he was known as that sort of person. Um, and, uh, came in very charismatic man into a very big organisation, um, very lost with the organisation. And he came in and, you know, basically said, well, questioned everything. Why do we, why do we do this this way?

Karina

Well, that’s how we’ve always done it. You know, the classic usual, well, what if we do it this way? You know, what, if I, rather than everyone having weights, what I, what I am braced off me, but I have a negotiation with their boss about how they want to track the work. Like everyone’s different. Well, hang on that made stalling out our processes that we were working with fine for all these years. And, um, eventually the pains themselves were coming alive, but then that threatened the hierarchy and the bosses weren’t happy with it. And so he started getting pressure from the very people who brought him in to in life and the organization. And I got to the point where he was being performance managed so strongly that he brought me in as a support person for mating, with the say yard and two of the, um, they paid with this organization.

Karina

And I remember when I first started, which was this man hate, he was in a John please yesterday. And I was watching him in this discussion with the saying you people in the organization, that he was actually part of that, that, that level, they was at the same level with two of these people and report it to the third and his posture. He was like Dan. And he was like, he looked like he was touching [inaudible] man. And I know that his behaviors at that time were getting worse and worse. His health was getting bad. He was starting to have high blood pressure and it was impacting on everything. And, um, in a coaching session, we came, we got that too. What, what, what were you born in here to do? What have you done? What’s gone wrong? You know, is there something about the original brief that you haven’t done? Right. Um, and, and then we were able to recognize that he was ready for that geek, but that would play sports and in the executive team, wasn’t ready for that change.

Sally

So what did you do with him to help him get himself back on track as well?

Karina

We’re gonna get graded by six by six stuff was just all of that. Um, getting his mindset, right. Getting his body right. Getting his potty, but just coaching on basics. Like when you’re like nice and you Alexa, he was literally slammed across the desk. Um, you know, our height, your whole body is in defeat mode. You know, if you’re going to be going into these meetings, just basic body language, shoulders back, and chest out and look people in the eye. Um, and that I think is part of self-leadership, it’s just, you know, no matter how much you’re beaten, you don’t have to look Baden. Yeah.

Sally

Yeah. And I, I, one of the models that I’m playing with around this is looking at value voice and visibility is three core areas. And I think, you know, when, when we’re in such high stress and prolonged uncertainty, you know, things like our self-talk, our self image or self belief to can, can take some knocks. And I think that if we’re not paying attention to the, the voices in our head and are they helping or are they hindering, um, does the impostor syndrome get louder? When, when everything else around us is telling us we’re not doing something right, or we get so much pushback. Um, you know, I wonder if, if also in that environment, you know, some of his own boundaries were challenged a bit because we, you know, what, what do I have to do to get through to you people? This is how I’m is this what I’m hearing this. I say, um, you know, that’s, my imagination is going with this poor guy. So what are your thoughts around those sorts of element?

Karina

Well, the funny thing about it is whenever, you know, you know, the, um, I guess the triangle of a transactional analysis model where, you know, if somebody is under threat, they’re likely to go into child mode or adult mode, and the child mode has been quite rebellious and a bit like, you know, like just I’m going to do it anyway. I’ll say I won’t go into it. I’ll do it anyway. You know? And it was so funny with that particular person I saw him going to, and I had to pull him up on that and go, you doing this stuff, you’re being antagonistic. You deliberately getting them off side, you’re having fun. You’re going out and doing exactly what they want. Not, they don’t want you to do, just to see the reaction you’ve gone into child mode. And the great thing about this particular client is he was a real life learner and he loved it. He used to just really love the coaching sessions and like, ah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, that’s bad. I shouldn’t do this. And getting him to get back into adult mode. You know, you want to be set out for serious. You’ve got to come to this game as an adult and find as an adult

Sally

That’s to me, that’s brilliant self leadership in itself too, is that, um, being a lifelong learner and being open to be called on behaviours and owning it. And I love that. I love it when we are talking to people to kind of go, yeah, probably shouldn’t do that. And then that moment of realisation, I think is just gold.

Karina

Yeah know, I think the other thing I’ll say in working with executives is, and especially it’s things, the higher, the level of executives in this by get to the Moolah, they are willing to put up with crap behaviours from the organisation or from above them. Um, for example, there was one, um, marketing director I was talking to once there was coaching once and she was talking about how the culture was, uh, you know, um, presentism culture, you know, it was like, you didn’t want to be the last one in, and you didn’t want to be the first one to leave and you know, all of that stuff. And, um, and that the boss was quite aggressive and she was, you know, talking less, give me some examples of the aggression of this boss. And, you know, she’d say things like walk in and yell across the office at you and say, did you get those?

Karina

They’re the targets that you were supposed to get has that dumb thing with yours going and things like that quite abusive. And she was talking to me about, there was one time at the end of the year that had the Christmas breakouts and the whole time with Zia. And he was looking around at all the staff and being really charismatic and really cool and really hip and everyone’s loving him. But what those people didn’t know is that the executive team that morning had a meeting with him where he’d set him around the board table. And he had basically said our year’s results were crap. He didn’t use that word. He used a word ribbon that lots of ACE bonds. You, you need to explain to me why you should have a job, why you should have an effing job next year and went around the whole table. Every single person had to justify why they had to sit at that table and why you shouldn’t fire them on the spot. This was an a board room.

Karina

I was listening to her and I said, you’d know that that’s abuse, right? That’s, that’s humiliation, it’s abuse. Um, and, and so for her, what I had to do is help her realise that what she put up with that sort of abuse and any other kind of relationship. And I used her husband as an example, if your husband was talking to you like that, tell me one good reason why you should, I should continue to be married to you. Tell me one good thing you’ve done. Why, what value do you bring to this household? Would you tolerate that? Or would you stand up for yourself? And when I put it in those terms, and we realised that she was giving because of the fact that she was trading off the paycheck for the permission toward beauties.

Sally

Yeah. It’s interesting. Isn’t it? When, when you look at that, the, the amount of income that we have, and, and of course, we’ve got to eat, we’ve got to pay the bills and it is such a difficult situation that you can get into. I know I’ve had a similar situation, cartoon someone and saying, you need to go home and do the maths, actually do the maths. Don’t stop playing this type in your head. That is about all these scenarios and your dooms dying. And you’re catastrophising. I need you to go home, have an alcohol free night with your wife and do the maths and come back and tell me whether you can actually go down, um, a rung in the ladder and go back to being in your joy and in your, the best position you, you love being in, um, you know, the money has to be accounted for, and it has to be discussed, um, because I think it can really trap people. And, and, and it’s one of those things that absolutely seems to give that permission for all this other bad behaviour. Um, it’s, it’s really interesting, isn’t it? I mean, we could talk about this for days, um, but we don’t have that. So how do you tie that back to your, your gentleman who was being a bit childlike? You know, how did you fire up yourself leadership? How did you reignite that motivation for it?

Karina

Oh, look, I think, uh, helping him identify some patterns, um, in, we all have our triggers and we all have out our patterns and, um, you know, we might be absolutely able to stand our ground in certain circumstances with certain people, but whether it’s the tone of voice, whether it’s the fact that they’re a man or a woman, or have a degree in something, you know, there’s some people who’ve got a, uh, you know, they, they feel intimidated because somebody’s got a high level of education. For example, even though they’ve got 40 years of experience, if they get dealing with somebody who’s got a master’s or, you know, whatever, they will suddenly go water. So I think part of it was helping him re how, helping him understand why it was, he was feeling so powerless in that situation and particularly with his boss, um, and then working out and also looking at the personalities and understanding the whole, you know, I use disc as my model, um, for personality and behaviours.

Karina

Um, but there’s so many out there, but helping will kit identify what’s your personality and what’s hers. And that will like that, you know? Um, so the threat, helping them realise that the threat was going by ways and helping them get, again, a sense of empathy for his boss, because he wouldn’t terrify her. And so the more he terrified her with this, you know, behaviour that she saw soars like crazy outlandish. Um, then the more she was putting strictures on him and I can do more reporting and making do more checking in, which went totally against his natural behaviour.

Sally

And it triggers the, it, you know, you can see the spiral can’t you and the back and forth, and you can see her, um, without putting a pattern or a, you know, a pattern break in there, um, to say, hang on a minute, you know, you can see both them spiralling down and losing their, their sense of power and confidence and, and even losing their ability to influence so, um, or influence in a positive way. So, yeah, yeah,

Karina

Yeah, no, but I think that the other thing about it is, you know, it was of comes back to what you were talking about before we, you know, if you realize that that something’s not working for you and you’re not happy at work, you know, you can’t run a Y you know, you do need to confront it. You need to have the guts to go into whoever it is. You need to talk to the boss or whoever, and, and, you know, have the conversation about this is this is really difficult for me. Is it difficult for you? Is it difficult for other people? Cause I’m finding this really difficult and asking for the help, but I think that’s something that, you know, I know myself, you know, in my past, I’m not good at asking for help. Um, and I think a lot of people struggle with that, you know, because if we ask for help, it means that we’ve failed. You know, we, we, we haven’t done it right enough yet, you know? Um, so I think you do need, have confidence to go. I’m not perfect. And I have a wall B and maybe it’s not that I’m doing it well enough. Maybe I haven’t been given enough support. Maybe I haven’t been given enough resources. Maybe I haven’t given enough training, you know, um, maybe I’m just being overloaded, you know, um, coming in, asking for help and saying, Hey, I’m drowning is not a sign of weakness.

Sally

And it’s also, I think one of the things around that is it’s not, um, I’m drowning and I’m permanently drowning. It’s right now I need a little bit of reprieve. And, and I think we, there’s a, there can be this potential for people to feel like that’s a permanent thing when actual fact now it’s just a dip and I’m going to come back up and I’m going to come back out better. If I get the right help, I just need help to find the right help and then implement it. And then we’re back on track again. Um, and yeah, I, I just wish that was, that was sort of, uh, something that was also part of that discussion is just go just a short term blip to help me get helped me write the course again. So yeah, definitely asking for help, I think is a big one. Isn’t that? So thank you for that.

Karina

And you can, you know, just to be, you know, there’s very few people who get up at five every morning. I know there’s people who say they do, you know, I get up at four 30, I do my yoga. I go for my six K run and then I come home and I do my washing and I do, you know, to start work at seven 30 in the morning. And,

Sally

And I have my fermented mung bean tea,

Karina

I think to do that for a whole two years, you haven’t reporting and keep your records. But, um, no, I, I think that we have to recognise that we’re human and we need to allow ourselves down time and we need to allow ourselves time where I’m not having a good day, but I’m not having a good day. I’m actually going to be my best leader. And I’m going to say to myself, you know what, you’re going to be as useless as xxx should I, so why don’t you like put aside that massive piece of work that you’re working on, but that’s one side and, you know, go and do something really Monday, like do some filing or take some boxes, do something called give yourself a day off.

Sally

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I just want to jump in there and just say all due respect to those who do get up at four 36 K run and do do their yoga. We are, um, obviously abundantly jealous of you and we admire you. However, for those of you who do have fermented mung bang tea, we have serious conversation with your essence about what you’re talking about, Nick Reno. I totally agree around, you know, you can’t be 100% on all the time and you need that self care. And that’s also part of, you know, you know, self leadership is about leading oneself. And so if I need care, go get it and, and do that and, and give that. And it’s not a gift it’s actually, um, it’s an essential, you know, I think COVID, you know, you saw COVID fall out and you say, okay, who’s an essential worker and who’s not an essential worker. You know, self care is essential. It’s not a gift. Um, and I think that’s a really important thing, but we are absolutely running out of time. Um, but I would love to talk with you about this for another 14 hours. Um, so one last question, if that’s all right, Dr. Corrina, what is one thing you wish you knew about self leadership? Um, when you first stepped into a leadership role?

Karina

Look, I think one thing that I don’t know whether it’s about sticking to a leadership role, but I wish that I had of no one when I was a kid. And when I was a teenager that I was bright, and I think sometimes we’re lucky, some people are very lucky and they’re raised in households where their talents, their strengths are affirmed. Um, so I would say that for both people who didn’t have that and it nothing wrong with my, my, my parenting, my parents were wonderful people, but it was a working class household. And, um, the values were around being a good person. So school reports would come in. It was about what you well behaved, not what were your scores. And so I actually went all the way through school thinking I was an underachiever. Um, in high school, we got put into a string classes and it wasn’t a toll. Um, I got my PhD years later in my year, I turned 40 and, um, I’ve joined my best friend who was in the same class. I mean, primary school when I’m hot school. And I said to her, how do they, before this dumb mate from Beck concerned form would ever get a PhD. She said, Karina you idiot? Like you went down, we were in the top class, you’re talking about more in the top class, we were three eight for a reason that we provided it. We were the smart kids,

Karina

But she didn’t realise, I didn’t know, kids in the class knew that. I mean, we are the high achievers. I was the dumbest kid in the smartest class. So I staff the leaf.

Sally

You just didn’t know that that’s what, that was the labelling. And the setting up, you say, you didn’t realise, and you’re obviously amongst your peers, you know, you performed as equitably with the, with the rest of your peers. It was just how, how they, um, divvied up the kids in that year.

Karina

Yeah, no, I got what, I mean, what I’m meant to say is that yourself identity is really important and I think owning, owning what you’re lucky enough to be born with.

Sally

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Karina

And, and so I, I, I was lucky enough to be born with a fairly bright mind. Um, and so just go out there and do the best I can with it.

Sally

Yeah. Nice. I love it. I think we can bake that. Thank you. So, Dr. Karina Butera from the Boundless Impact proprietary limited, master coach. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom on self-leadership in this series. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.