Movers and Shakers: Susan Bulkeley Butler, Founder and CEO of SBB Institute for the Development of Women Leaders

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Be responsible for who you are and what you want to be and make it happen,” advised Susan Bulkeley Butler, founder and CEO of the SSB institute for the Development of Women Leaders.

This is advice Butler herself has lived – after being the first woman professional hired at Arthur Anderson (now Accenture) in 1965, she found herself passed over for promotion time and time again – until she realized she needed to take control of her career, that is. Butler turned her professional path around, eventually being named the first female partner at the firm. Now retired from the company, Butler is also a published author and leadership speaker, enthusiastically working toward the goal of getting more women into top jobs.

“We have one life and I’m not sure we all make things happen for us, rather than let things happen to us. If we’re not taking responsibility for who we are and where we want to be, then who are we outsourcing this to? Who is making this happen?”

Path to Leadership

Butler describes her career in four parts. “The first section is all about getting started. I was the first woman at Arthur Anderson [now Accenture], and there was a lot I didn’t know. When I didn’t get promoted and I thought I should have, I realized I had a job instead of a career. I decided I needed to take charge of where I wanted to be and how I wanted to get there.”

The next phase, she continued, was about empowering herself. “This was up to the time I was promoted to partner and learning how to lead others – so that others saw I was partnership material. I learned you have to do the job you want before you get it.”

The third part, Butler explained, was her next 15 to 35 years with the company empowering and leading others around the globe. And the fourth, she continued, is the past ten years following her retirement from Accenture – but certainly not retirement from the leadership work she loves. “It’s all about changing the world,” she explained. “For a long time, there were very few women at the top during most of my career. I vowed that I was going to make a difference at the top of the house before I left this earth.”

She continued, “This year is the hundredth anniversary of the right to vote. Why aren’t we equal yet?” Butler is part of a new group out of Drexel University in Pennsylvania called Vision2020, which is works to increase the percentage of women on boards of directors. “Our focus is really to get upwards of 30% on boards of directors. But that’s only eight years away.”

She counts her experience leading others as one of her top achievements. For example, Accenture grew from 450 people when she joined to 250,000 when she retired, and as Managing Partner in the Office of the CEO, she explained, “From my point of view, it’s been impacting others to be all they can be, and now it’s about changing the world for women.”

Butler said her first book, which is now updated and out in paperback, Become the CEO of You, Inc., was also a major achievement. “You get tired of walking into a room and seeing one woman at the table.” The book discusses advice and strategies for women to achieve the leadership role they desire.

She continued, “But it’s a top down, bottom up process. People at the top of the house have got to understand the business case. Maybe they don’t want to, because groupthink is easier and diversity of thought takes time, but with diversity you get a better answer.”

“It’s time to pony up and make strategic initiatives successful. Walking the talk right now is not what I see out there,” Butler added.

Driving Your Own Career

“The question I like to ask people is ‘what are you doing in five years?’ I would like us all to be better at knowing where we want to go,” Butler continued. “It’s the difference between having a job and a career. The difference is when you decide this is where I want to go and how I want to get there.”

Founding the SSB Institute has helped Butler get her message out about the importance of career planning. “Someone asked me why I founded the Institute, and I didn’t have an answer at first. I knew it, but didn’t know how to put it into words. Now I know it’s that I am impacting zillions of women and girls to be all they can be,” Butler said. “That’s my north star.”

She continued, “That gave me a home and that evolved into my Institute. I’m lucky that this is more of a hobby than a business, though. I will talk to anyone, anyplace, anywhere – because I know I can make an impact on someone’s life.”

This kind of work has been a passion for a long time, she said. “When I got promoted at Accenture, I spent a lot of time with women. They didn’t have anyone else to look up to. We talked about things they would never have had a conversation about with men.”

Butler says work life challenges can be an obstacle for women. But these challenges can be overcome. She recalled, “At one point I had to take care of my mother with Alzheimer’s. You have to figure out how to do it when it needs to be done. My cardinal rule is play with the deck of cards you have today, not the deck of cards you think you’re going to have in the future.”

She added, “When the time comes to make changes, then you can refocus. But don’t refocus now because the changes are going to happen so fast.” For example, she said, consider the changes in family friendly workplace polices that have arisen in just the past five years. “By the time you need to make decisions, things are going to be so different.”

Butler drew on her own experience and the experience of women she’s worked with to write her book, Become the CEO of You, Inc. She hopes women can gain from her own experiences. “It’s really a text book – it’s how I created my career and the methodology behind it.”

Advice for Professional Women

Butler advises young people to focus on the long term for their career. She recalled managing new recruits at her office in Philadelphia. “Some would come to work for me with the notion to work for two years and get off the train and some would say I’m going to be here for the long term.”

She continued, “That long term attitude means a whole different set of skills, expectations, et cetera. If I had the two-year attitude I would have never gotten to where I am.”

Another thing Butler emphasized is learning to say no, she continued. “It feels selfish when we do it. We say yes to everybody, I believe, too much. No is a word in our vocabulary we don’t use very often. But if you say yes, and don’t deliver, it’s going to be harder on you than if you’d said no. We get too much on our plate by saying yes all the time. When need to learn how to delegate things, so we don’t have to do it all.”

Finally, she advised, remember that you don’t have to be perfect. “Men have a tendency to do things that are good enough and we always try to do 110 percent.” That can lead to burnout or avoiding new challenges, she explained.

As for senior women, Butler continued, “I hope they’re pulling other women up behind them.”

“It’s up to us, when we have made it, to help others be successful, fill the pipeline with qualified women, and pull qualified women to senior levels. That doesn’t always happen. I would ask senior women to be sponsors of other women, to develop them like others developed us.”

In Her Personal Time

“Philanthropy is very near and dear to my heart,” Butler said. “Someone gave me this quote – ‘learn, earn, return.’ I continue to grow because of other people, so I need to give back. It’s part of paying rent for being on this earth.”