Episode 157 - Dwight Utz - Leaders on Leadershi
You serve two important groups as a leader: your team and your clients. How do you navigate these as well as yourself for positive and successful leadership? Today's guest, Dwight Utz, serves as the Board Vice Chair for his alma mater, Central Penn College. He has an amazing background in leading organizations to their full potential as former President/CEO/Director of Peoples Bank in York, PA, and East Carolina Bank in Engelhard, NC. Join his chat with Dr. Tracey Jones as he expounds on the importance of staying in alignment with your team when it comes to strategy. Dwight also highlights the client experience as another key factor, along with staying informed and educated about what's going on in your industry. His mantra for leadership includes the three E's: energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. Hear more of Dwight's distilled wisdom on leadership by tuning in to this episode.
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Dwight Utz - Leaders on Leadership
In this episode, I am so excited because my very special guest is Dwight Utz. I reconnected with Dwight at a Central Penn College fundraiser and was reminded of how tremendous he is. Dwight, thank you so much for being here.
Tracey, thanks so much for having me. It's great.
I got to put in a plug for Central Penn College, located right nearby us and it is the home of the Charlie T. Jones Leadership Library. Dwight, I want to tell you a little bit about him. He is the Board Vice Chair of Central Penn College. He is also a former President, CEO and Director of PeoplesBank in York, PA and also a former President, CEO and Director of East Carolina Bank in Engelhard, North Carolina. I am super excited to talk to Dwight about entrepreneurship, growing businesses, starting different things and education. Dwight, thank you again.
Tracey, this is wonderful. It was great reconnecting as well.
I can't wait to learn from you and we're going to get right into this. My father gave a speech called The Price of Leadership many decades ago and he talked about the four things that leaders are going to have to be paying if they're going to be true leaders. Dwight, the first of those is loneliness. We've all heard that term it's lonely at the top. Can you unpack loneliness for you as a leader may be in different venues, stages and enterprises through your life and share it with our readers? If they're going through a season of loneliness, what you would advise?
The old adage is the buck stops here. When I went to North Carolina as the CEO of East Carolina, it was a bank that was in very rural North Carolina. The CEO had sat in the seat for twenty-plus years and there was no strategic direction. When you talk about loneliness, you go in and the board says to you, “We want to be a $5 billion company in 10 years.” At that, you sit back and say, “Okay.” It was understanding what the bank was, what it did well and what needed to be changed.
It came down to it was a change in leadership, where our corporate headquarters was, raising capital, looking at M&A targets and how can we provide a better client experience. In that, you talk about sitting back and saying, “This is all on me and the team.” There's some loneliness in those kinds of things. It was well worth it. The board was very supportive. In that loneliness, you rely on your team and your board. In the end, what is most important is the client experience because, without a client, you have nothing. That's the loneliness I would describe to. It's exciting being a CEO but there are some very lonely days.
I liked how you talked about it because a lot of our leaders are good at fixing problems and fixers and have probably gone into organizations as you talked about. I got recruited several times to come in and be a fixer. It is lonely because you're trying to get the lay of the land. I love that you put the nuance of loneliness as you're lonely until you understand the context of what you're walking into.
You can identify with the other people that are looking at you as a new person and how you talk about it's because you are an outsider coming in. By default, you're going to be somewhat lonely but the more you understand, identify and then rely on the team, that dissipates. I love that you shared that progression.
A real key factor and most leaders hopefully get this and understand it, is the team that you build. It's not just the team at the top. Everybody keeps focusing on senior leadership and executive leadership. I suggest to you that if you don't focus on the supervisors and the middle managers, I will assure you, if they do not understand your strategy and what you're trying to build, you will not build it. It's that simple. That to me is the real key. Yes, you need key leadership but you need to understand and focus on that frontline leader because that is the key in my opinion.
It's not just your opinion. It's born out in leadership literature, which is what I study. I tell people it's the 80/20. Leadership is 20%. You can have average leadership and great integrators and frontline and be way more successful than fantastic leadership and subpar followership. You're right. They're the ones that make it happen.
It's like me when I was an officer. I hung so tight with my enlisted troops because they were the ones that made it happen. You can be up here with your fellow officers, which is great for camaraderie but whom you need to be tight with is your troops. I love how you put that out there. That's a very sound leadership principle for our leaders out there reading.
When I was in Louisiana, I was with a small community bank that was a startup. When I was hired, they were like, “Dwight, we want to get to $2 billion.” When I went in, it was very clear that the team who needed to execute were not the right leaders. Here's an example of a new guy coming in. I went to the CEO and said, “We've got 20 branch managers and 8 are true leaders.” That's a lot, in my opinion. My job was to drive revenue. Over three years, we made changes. You could see revenue go this way because you had the right team.
As leaders, we need to also see and be very discerning in seeing whom we need to take us to the next level. That's tough making that thing because you can't coach everybody to the level you need them at too. Since we're talking serious and season leadership, if they've been in the position for more than three years and it hasn't happened yet, you got to sit there and say as a leader, “Either you horrendously failed them or it's not going to happen.” We need to be real, call it and say, “If it hasn't happened, it's probably not going to happen.”
Thank you for your insights on loneliness and how to overcome that. That's something that everybody can take away because they're going to experience it, especially if they're brought in. If you're not, you might want to check and make sure you might be able to unself aware or something. Next is weariness.
My father would always tell me, “Tracey, my problem isn't motivating myself. It's keeping other people from demotivating me.” There's that element of, “You are fighting a good fight but there's always going to be an element of the team or people that are not all in.” How do you stay strong? As leaders, we have to stay at the peak of cognitive energy, attitude, professionalism and par excellence. How do you combat weariness?
Part of it is I live by the mantra of the three E’s. This is both in my professional life and also my family life. That is Energy, Enthusiasm and Excitement. Tracey, I hire, promote and mentor with those three elements. If a person does not show me those three attributes, I’ll suggest to you that they are not the right candidate. In some situations, they may not have exactly the talent level that you want but if they show me that, that means to me that they are willing to go that extra step to learn what they have as if you will deficiencies.
I love a challenge. That's what gives me the energy, excitement and enthusiasm to keep motivated and moving forward. I rarely look back. All you're doing is looking in the rearview mirror. It doesn't matter to me. I do love looking into the windshield. I’m a visionary. That's what I’m known for. I look out to the future of the folks that you hire to manage the date now. I try to look out for what we need and where should be going. That's what motivates me and keeps me going.
Look out to the future. The folks that you hire will manage the day to day.
For our readers out there, there's this school of thought that the leaders have to always be pouring into the people. We, as leaders, draw energy, enthusiasm and excitement. Leadership and followership are dyadic relationships. It's two sides of the same coin. If leaders have unmotivated employees, they start getting dragged down. My dad used to tell me, “Tracey, if you want a better leader, be a better follower. If you want a better job, do a better job.” I have found that I need their energy too. That's what gets me excited. I love that you brought that out because that is such a tremendous source.
I think of Churchhill and how beaten down he was. He went down in that tube and talked to the people who said, “We're behind you, come what may.” He drew that energy from the people, his citizens and then said, “We're not negotiating. We're going to go in for the fight.” I think about the speech that he gave. That's the classic example of drawing that energy, enthusiasm and excitement from your followers.
The next topic is something we all struggle with, which is abandonment. Not in a negative sense, like abandoning your duty or an animal but an abandonment of stopping doing the things that you like and want to do in favor of the things that you ought and need to do. In this sense of leadership, I’ve always been told, “The more niche you go, the more you grow.” A lot of times, as leaders, we’re like, “This bank or college is doing this. Let's do it all.” The more specialized and abandoned you become to your true focus, the more successful you are. How do you stay on point?
It's important that you stay focused on what's important. Especially when you’re in an active role, you can get so tied up and be looking at emails all day but if you don't stop, read and engage yourself in conversations with experts or councils, you lose it. My day would always start at 7:00. Between 7:00 and 10:00 in the morning was always my thinking time.
My time to focus on, number one, learning, reading and engaging in conversations with my internal experts on whatever the subject might be. If you don't learn continually learning, it's difficult to understand. I agree with you that you cannot be all things to all people. Particularly in the banking industry, it's accepting deposits, making loans and the client experience.
In every organization that I was with, the clear message was the client experience, whether that meant technology solutions to help with that or how we engage our clients. A lot of banks, whether it's commercial lending, commercial real estate or small business lending, are important but if you don't focus on the experience, you will have none of that because the clients have many choices in the banking industry. I agree with the statement, “You can't be all things to all people.” For me, the key is the client experience will permeate and create the opportunities that you need to grow your company.
Leaders on Leadership: The client experience will permeate and create the opportunities that you need to grow your company.
I’m in publishing so are one million other publishers. In banking, there are actions that anybody could pay anybody to do but it's where can you do it better than anybody else? How did you know which aspect of the client experience? Maybe in a metropolitan city, it would be more tech or crypto. How did you find out exactly what it was for some of the rural banks? How did you get the business intel, so you knew what portion of the client experience to focus on?
It's all about data. A lot of people think about banks and data. If you look in every industry and you don't understand the data that's in front of you, you don't understand. In the community bank in North Carolina, we had branches from the Southern tip of Virginia to the top of South Carolina. In between, there were metro areas but then there were rural farming and fishing communities. If you think that you're going to deliver in a metro area and a rural farming fishing, in the same way, you're kidding yourselves. What a rural community wants is the touch. In the metro areas, they want technology solutions.
In the rural areas, the best success was us going out, sitting on a combine, talking to them about the moisture in the soil and how much crop they produce per acre. That is what drove them to say, “This is the bank that I want to continue to doing business with.” Conversely, in the metro area, they could care less about who the CEO was. They wanted quick access. In ATMs, they wanted mobile banking. It’s all the things but it's different in every market. You have to understand your clients and markets. That's how we did it. It’s data-driven.
Leadership is highly contextualized. It depends on a million different variables. Business is highly contextualized. You can get the sense but you also have to get what the research says. You can have a hunch but the research will bear it out. Thank you so much for that, Dwight. Lastly, you said that one of the things you like doing is being a visionary.
The last price my dad says is, “You're going to have to pay the price with vision.” He would say that vision is seeing what needs to be done and then doing it. He had a very pragmatic, blue sky but a blueprint perspective on it. I know you do as well because you would not have been as successful. I can tell from our discussion before you get the whole phrase, “This is nice but we got to make it work.” Can you share with us how you hone your vision? How do you get inspired? How do you know maybe when this vision is ready to be tweaked or shelved and onto the next thing?
Part of it is learning and educating yourself on the industry. I was very active in national organizations and state organizations. If you don't see trending and understand what is coming, then you're so far behind. You can't catch up. It's reading. There are things that I have presented to boards of directors that they look at you and say, “Where is this guy coming from?” This is what is coming, crypto. This is not going to be important. That was the board. It became important. Do we have to be experts? No, but we have to know what the impact will be and understand what the economics of our world and our country are and what impact will they have on what we want to do.
Tracey, I always tried to have our board look 3 to 5 out and make sure that they signed off and bought in. It's critical that you also educate your board and as well, make sure that your team understands. Part of why strategic plans fail is because your team does not know what your strategy is. What I did was published and delivered to every single employee a copy of our strategic plan so that when they had their weekly meetings or monthly meetings, they all knew where we stood with our plan. If they don't know, how they execute is my question. They don't.
Part of why strategic plans fail is because your team does not know what your strategy is.
Vision sometimes gets very esoteric. I’m not a Bill Gates or a Mark Zuckerberg. I love that you tie it to vision as the education of the industry, the impact and the economics. First of all, it is out there and it's our job as visionaries to discover the future. People say to create it. I’m like, “In my opinion, there's nothing new under the sun. It's already been created.”
To discover it, we have to look at what is going on and be very good researchers. I love that perspective of education in the industry. I also love that you talk about the board and the team. Everybody has to understand and be all in with the vision. Otherwise, the vision is, “I don't care if the Holy Spirit annoys you,” if everybody is not all in and understands it. Especially for the board to understand their role in making it happen is critical. Excellent insights.
Thank you. I have seen so many companies, particularly community banking. This is not a cut but CEOs have sat in the chair for 40, 30 or 20 years and it was banking as it was. Readers, I encourage you, if you are a leader, to think about your vision. Are you a visionary? Are you a strategist or into the day-to-day minutia? To one person, I encourage you to step away from the day-to-day management and be a true strategic visionary because that is the propellant for your organization to move forward.
Leaders on Leadership: Step away from the day to day management, and be a true strategic visionary because that is the propellant for your organization to move forward.
Be a true strategic visionary. True words were never spoken. Thank you. Dwight, your comments remind me of one of my favorite books, The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, where we have these three hats. We have our entrepreneurial hat, manager hat and technician hat. The more you grow in the organization, you have to be wearing that E hat a lot more. Everybody is waiting for that. That's the spark that ignites everybody else. I love that you talk about stepping away from it and getting clear on enough with the day-to-day chatter and where we are going next.
I used to bring the team together and everybody wanted to talk about this little issue in branch A. I get all that but that's what the board and I are paying you to handle. Not that I wasn't aware of what was going on. I was aware of what was going on but you have to understand what you get into and what you let others get into. Delegation for me was very easy. It isn't easy for everybody. As leaders, I encourage you to not feel bad about delegating to the team. Stick to what you need to do for the growth of your company.
As leaders, don’t feel bad about delegating to the team and stick to what you need to do for the growth of your company.
Dwight, we have covered loneliness, weariness, abandonment and vision. Anything else that you would like to share with our leaders out there as far as your leadership journey?
Tracey, please cut me off because I could talk forever but it was interesting. When I was in high school, I was not a great student. I was probably a C-minus, D-plus student. A guidance counselor came to me and said, “Dwight, you will never amount to anything if you don't get your crap together.” That was a moving, emotional and motivating experience.
I then went to Central Penn and this is why I still love Central Penn College many years later. It was that experience, guidance and kicked in the butt. Central Penn made me what I am, both as a person and a leader. It's an emotional environment for me when I talked about this because without Central Penn College's leadership many years ago, I may not be sitting here talking to you and your audience but what they gave and taught me still lives. I love it. This college, with our leadership, has done some phenomenal things and I’m excited about it.
Dwight, there were two things I heard in that. Number one, when somebody looked at you in the eye and said, “You better straighten up and fly,” you were teachable. You talked about that when you were talking about weariness energy and enthusiasm. You were willing to accept instruction and say, “Let that be not shut you down or make you angry but do that.” I thank you for that.
The other thing is for our readers. Please check out Central Penn College. Anytime you buy anything from us, Central Penn College is one of the tremendous organizations that we support with the profits from you all. We love them. My father loved them. I’ve got family members that went there. Dwight, you’re doing incredible things. You have such a beautiful niche for students that are oriented towards that particular thing to give them like you because I wasn't the best student either. It’s the efficacy, the discipleship and the training that you can become anything you want to be. I love that for many years plus, you still live and breathe that.
Also, the stories that come out from some of our students. Please don't misunderstand. Other colleges are impactful to their students. Not every day but every week, I talk to former students and current students. It's so nice to hear the impact that this college and other colleges are having on our students. What they take out of that and what they do with their career is amazing.
You can bloom in it because it's a smaller school and you get that one-on-one instruction. South Central PA is so rich with businesses like small businesses, mid-size businesses and government. It's amazing. For the readers out there, not to get introduced to you but also if you have young people in your life or even middle-aged learners like us, check out Central Penn College and everything. Dwight, I want to thank you again so much for sharing your wisdom with me. I have learned so much. It's always an honor to get to hear the distilled wisdom and the applied wisdom from someone like you.
Tracey, thank you so much for having me. To your audience, thank you.
You're welcome. Dwight, how do people get ahold of you? Is it LinkedIn? Do you want them to reach out through the college if maybe they are interested in a tour or connecting with you about follow on discussions with your leadership and things you dealt with?
I am very active on LinkedIn. You can find me by Dwight Utz. They can contact me through the college at DwightUtz@CentralPenn.edu.
Dwight, thank you so much. To our tremendous readers out there, we want to thank you so much for reading. Keep on paying the price of leadership. If you like what you’ve read, please hit the subscribe button. If you would do us the honor of a five-star review, we would be so thankful. Be sure and go over to Tremendous Leadership. If you sign up, you get weeks of free eBooks. We have free online webinars and a host of tremendous books that can change your life. Also, if you want to publish with us, check it out too. Thank you all for being part of the Tremendous Tribe. Continue to pay the price of leadership. Take care everyone.
Important Links
A. Dwight Utz - LinkedIn
About Dwight Utz
Dwight Utz serves as the Board Vice Chair for Central Penn College located in Summerdale, PA., which is also his alma mater. He is also a former President/CEO/Director of Peoples Bank in York, PA as well as the East Carolina Bank located in Engelhard, NC. Dwight has an amazing background in leading organizations to their full potential.