Indra Nooyi: A Leader's Path to Success

This paper discusses the professional career path and leadership skills of Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of PepsiCo. It explores how her leadership skills and management roles transformed the company and highlights the impact of her strategies on the organization's structure, operations, and communication. The paper also compares the author's own leadership style with that of Indra Nooyi and concludes with the importance of following her example in managing professional and personal life.

Running head: SELF ASSESSMENT INVESTIGATION
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
This paper is based on the professional career path of Indra Nooyi and how her leadership
skills helped to achieve the goals for Pepsi. Indra Nooyi, one of the most successful business
executive has been ranked among the 100 most powerful women in the world (Nelson,
2015). She became the CEO and President in 2006 of the company (Clinebell, 2014). She has
guided the international strategy of the company for more than a decade and led to the rise in
profit of the company. She was ranked second in the Fortune List of most powerful women.
Nooyi's deliberate redirection of the company has been mainly successful. She reclassified its
products into three categories: fun for you, better for you and good for you (Singh &
Manisha, 2013). She stimulated corporate expenditure away from the fast foods and to the
healthier alternative, with the objective of improving the healthiness of the fun
offerings. Nooyi played a key role in the brand expansion and diversification of PepsiCo,
which was mainly focused on the soft drinks. Nooyi during her career has learnt to be more
firm with her team to grow and achieve greater heights. The paper implies on the leader’s
management roles and functions to improve the organization’s structure, operations and
communications.
Career path and leadership skills
Nooyi intensely values her principles working on effective communication skills from a very
young age and learning how to encourage a group of people. Turning around a doing well
company for a CEO, can be more tough as most of the people do not realize the necessity or
the need. What has motivated Nooyi to break hindrances and achieve constantly is her ability
to be inquisitive, lively, and a lifelong student (Vinay & Singh 2015). Nooyi showed the
impact that great leaders can truly have on others things such as creating a vision, having
courage of the conviction, and unveiling the power of the people. Results have shown that

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under her possession as CEO of PepsiCo speaks itself. The revenue of the company grew
from $35 billion to $63.5 billion and by the end of the year; a sum of shareholder return was
almost 162 percent. (Miranda, 2013). She had introduced the Performance with Purpose
vision, a program to oblige long-term expansion while leaving behind a positive print on
society and the environment. Indra stepped down as a CEO, leaving behind the company that
is finely placed for the future. Therefore, it is not at all amazing that she is a treasured and
influential leader in the big business world. During her career, she explains that she has
seized to her 5 C’s Model of Leadership, which are competency, courage, confidence,
communication skills and compass and these obvious qualities have led to the growth as a
leader and her success as well as the company (Vinay & Singh 2015). One of them is
imagining self as the President. This approach helped to build Nooyi's confidence. She
managed and pushed through, secured in her skill and ability. She would talk to herself, that
she could to a task better than anyone else and she explained this at a 2015 talk in New York.
She also added that if everything failed, she could fix it as she knew she is that good.
Secondly, she believed to develop a niche skill. When issues arose, she wanted people to
think of her as the only person who can resolve the problem. By reflecting on the top skills
and by knowing what an individual wants, can help become an individual a go-to person in
the team. She said if someone has a competence that no one else he or she can become more
valuable. Thirdly, to think like the customers is another style of her. As a CEO, Nooyi
overlooked more than 26,000 employees worldwide that included more than 100 brands and
trademarks (Periyasamy, Anantharaman & Balasubramaniam, 2014). She used to take
pictures of the product’s packaging and assignment, and sent the critiques to the design and
promotion teams. Therefore, while thinking beyond an individual mission or assignment to it
is on the whole vision or mission can focus the person. Lastly, the adopted habit is surprise
with gratitude. Shortly after her promotion to CEO, Nooyi visited India to see her mother.

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During her stay, guests congratulated Nooyi's mother on her success. It made her realize that
the parents of great leaders hardly ever get gratitude for the person they realized. She stated
that by taking the time to thank those who support shows that the person values their
moment, pain and effort. They should not be taken for granted. A simple act of kindness can
make individuals more expected to help accomplish future goals.
Comparison of leadership skills
My leadership skills and style is very different from others. I like to welcome different types
of people into my life. I am captivated about the individual talents, hard work, skills,
knowledge, assistance, or accomplishments. It makes sense to trust self instinct that is the gut
feelings when I am deciding how to resolve any issue, objection, grievance or puzzles.
Because of these strengths, I obviously tend to intellect the excellent qualities that people
own. I keep reminding others why the person is important which keeps them motivated. In
this process, it probably boosts the self esteem and self confidence of the newcomers. I am
enthralled by the peculiar behaviors that differentiate persons from one another to and their
talents and capabilities. Chances are fine that can simply stir people’s eagerness with the
cheerful enthusiasm for life which I feel have a gift for giving out complete delight with
others. As a result, it makes me feel much more passionate about my life when results are
compared to those of the others. I feel extremely motivated by the illustration of standing in
the success circle and being hailed as the greatest among others. Because of the strengths, I
can draw all the steps of a job, procedure, or event. When these strengths are compared to
that of Indra, there are various similarities as well as differences. She is also a simple, kind,
humble and a down to earth person which are the key factors behind her path of success. She
is polite and always helpful towards others and can analyze their specific capabilities for
doing a particular job. She communicates with her team and tries to resolve the issues. Indra
always motivates herself by talking to herself than no one can do the job better than her

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which is the biggest similarity between the two of us (Kamath, 2015). Therefore, as she is
motivated all the time, her team is also energized and ready to deliver the results. Many
people value my organized and systematic work style and people are already fan of the leader
(Eich, 2017). By nature, we both are friendly and helpfully live and work with numerous
kinds of people. We both are the first to call notice to the integrity, talents, knowledge, or
skill others own. My job, studies, or life has become much more exciting when I help others
more completely experienced in their lives. Intuitively, we both are able to see the world
through their eyes and divide their perspective (Fitzsimmons, Miska & Stahl, 2016). We do
not necessarily have the same opinion with each person’s standpoint and do not necessarily
disregard the decisions each person makes. We help people find the right path to express their
thoughts. Therefore, the people are drawn more and the team is build and kept motivated in
the business. The difference in our style or skills is that she has a vision for her company and
persuades her team to follow ‘performance with purpose’ (Meinrenken et al.,2014). She
always stresses on strategic plans that is beneficial for her team as well as the company. She
believes that learning is a key factor in the path of success and tends to listen more than talk.
She believes her team and its people are everything and appreciates their time and effort.
Therefore, these are the major differences which could be analyzed for areas of development.
Management roles and functions
As a CEO, Indra used to focus on long term planning of company. Additionally, she
understood that public private partnership is critical for the firms to be successful. Her role
was to think and act globally (Ignatius, 2015). The responsibility was to learn the leadership
principle and the advanced technology including the younger generation. She navigated
through all the challenges and became one of the most powerful business women. She has
developed her skills and qualities into the management roles and functions (Barnes &
Spreitzer, 2015). Nooyi moves her business ahead by being occupied in the technical

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conversations and considerate the granular development from her departments. Her scientific
background helps to think up for challenges for R&D department, such as reintroducing the
yarn from spare orange peels into orange juice (Sharma, 2016). In addition, she drives
sincerity within the business by maintaining precise claims on her goods. In order to make
well-versed company level decision on rising markets and new initiatives, it is essential that
Nooyi realize the technical aspects. Deliberation is the recipe to get the employees on-board.
Impact of skills and management roles on the face of PepsiCo
Indra Nooyi values her workers and customers, and in fact works hard to authorize them to
become better. Nooyi is considerate and helpful; she uses herself as an instance of always
running hard to become better in order to inspire her supporters to do the same. Her
leadership skills changed and improved the organizational structure, operations, and
communication (Rao, 2015). The Three-Skill Approach and Bass’ 4I’s of Transformational
Leadership came together in for a vision and a revolution for PepsiCo towards sustainability
and an improved future (Rao & Purkayastha 2017). One of the most contentious initiatives
has been to readdress Pepsi’s substantial corporate use away from trash foods and to healthier
alternatives. Her strategy is to reach out the global emerging markets and expand across the
world. And she required ensuring that PepsiCo was not only delivering top-tier fiscal returns,
but doing in a method that was receptive to the wants of the world. That is the plan at the
mind of Performance with Purpose (Aguirre-Mar 2013). She also thinks that each of women
and men need to be more helpful of women who have established capacity and skill in their
jobs. Therefore, the huge reason where she is these days is because of the support she has got
from her husband, Raj, and her previous boss, Steve Reinemund, who forever believed and
helped her to conquer the barriers that make it hard for so many women to attain their
potential. All the women require strong support system to help them where they want to go.

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(Fitzsimmons, Miska, & Stahl 2016). Therefore, Nooyi’s leadership skills and management
roles completely changed her ability to improve the face of Pepsi.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above paper it can be concluded that Indra Nooyi, the most powerful
woman business executive has proved to be a born leader and why should everyone follow
her leadership skills which makes her different than the others. Her path of motivation and
encouragement and has driven other leaders to show case their skills and strengths to achieve
the goals of the company. However, she overcame many barriers and hindrances to achieve
her goals and took the company to new heights. Therefore, women should follow her
example to manage their professional life as well as family life and showcase their potential
in the specific area when given the right support. Thus, it is important to throw the right
shadow of leadership where leaders like Indra Nooyi work more than they say and not just
make fake promises.

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