Indira Nooyi

Indira Nooyi is a strategic and robust leader who, besides having educational qualifications that befit her work has extensive experience after working in different companies. Indira has worked at Johnson & Johnson, Metter Beardsell, Boston Consulting Group and at Motorola where she was Vice President before joining PepsiCo. She joined the soft drink company in the 1990s to date where she has helped the organization in different ways. The purpose of selecting a leader is inspired by her leadership approaches that bring a turnaround to organizations when put into consideration. The leader is currently a board member of Amazon Inc and a member of the International Cricket Committee (ICC). These are organizations that Indira continues to influence despite her not being in a leadership position. These factors are proof that the leader is great because she aligns well with the culture of most organizations. The leader is well known in the beverages industry because in the past year’s she has modeled PepsiCo to rival Coca-Cola in so many ways (Studies in Leadership Indra Nooyi, 2013).  The desire of Indira Nooyi of transforming any organization where she works is something that made me select her amongst many other business executives and leaders. Indira Nooyi has been at the helm of the organization as the Chairperson, and Chief Executive Officer since 2006 when she took from Steve Reinemund to 2018, where she stepped down after serving for 12 years (Leadership. n.d.).

Leadership Theory

Indira Nooyi is a robust leader who employs various styles and theories to deliver and bring results to the organization. In this case, so a specific approach or leadership style can be said to be adopted by her since she acts, I’m as according to the needs of the organization. She can employ situational leadership especially when she is dealing with challenges. Situational leadership comes out well in this case because she can relate with her employees in a nice yet professional way, listen to the needs of the customers and deal with tasks with high orientation.  Indira Nooyi also uses democratic and maternal styles of leadership that allow her to listen to opinions but making essential decisions (Leadership. n.d.).This way she can satisfy the needs of the employees. Indira is a charismatic leader who is genuinely caring, easy to relate to her team. She is passionate about investing in communicating skills within her team. She is usually updating herself so that she can lead, innovate and inspire her team. Her leadership styles allow her to relate with her team members well, while at the same time empower her to make vital decisions for the organization. She focuses on the power of the 5c’s that touch on competence, courage and confidence, communication, consistency, and compass to influence change in the organization (Studies in Leadership Indra Nooyi, 2013).

Greatest Career Achievement

Indira Nooyi greatest achievements have been at Pepsi because it is at this organization that she has been faced with an enormous need if transforming an organization. Helping Pepsi get back to their desired position in the market and industry is believed to be one of the biggest challenges that any Chief Executive Officer could have to deal with. The ease by which Indira Nooyi achieved this is through determination, changing the organizational culture and streamlining the operations of the business (Studies in Leadership Indra Nooyi, 2013). First, she played a very important role in the restructuring of Pepsi which took place shortly after she became head. She has also assisted the company in some of the greatest takeovers and acquisitions including that of Tropicana in 1997 (Leadership. n.d.). Reclassifying products for Pepsi was an immediate need when she took the leadership of the company, and she was able to achieve this by pushing her staff. The acquiring of Quaker Oats and Tricon in a significant way changed the dynamics of PepsiCo. Pepsi is devising a way to make products for use by women, and this is the thought process of Indira Nooyi (Studies in Leadership Indra Nooyi, 2013).  The majority of products by Pepsi were doing poorly in the market, and Indira changed this. Transforming Pepsi in the last ten years has taken a lot of effort and dedication and can be believed to be the most significant achievement for Nooyi so far (Rao & Purkayastha, 2017).

Career Challenges

Despite her success as the CEO of Pepsi, Indira has faced severe challenges in her journey. First and foremost, helping Pepsi get back to its feet was not an easy task mainly because she was facing opposition indirectly by the other members of the board. She however with resilience defended her actions, and the efforts bore fruits. Pepsi has for the longest time now been facing competition from Coca-Cola, and it has been challenging for Indira to find a way by which the dominance of CocaCola could be put in control (Leadership. n.d.). Working with different staffs with each having different attitudes is one challenge that managers and leaders are faced with Indira Nooyi is not left out of this problem. Change is usually not accepted by all; however, Indira faced numerous challenges from the shareholders in the process of restructuring the company. Being a woman CEO in a top company like Pepsi is a chance to be seen by the entire world. This presents with itself enough pressure. Most of these challenges were dealt with by adopting communication. The challenges faced were dealt with by using a more leadership role and less of a managerial position (Rao & Purkayastha, 2017).

Solving Challenges

In solving challenges, Indira Nooyi uses the mantra of allowing employees to contribute and give their insights on how to deal with the problem. Since she is an open leader, she can use innovation to understand the problem and also design ways to deal with the problem. Indira’s major challenges have been in disagreements with the stakeholders on her decisions, and her inability to hit profit targets. She has, however, overcome this by consulting and borrowing insights from her counterparts (Rao & Purkayastha, 2017).  Leading Pepsi has over the last many years presented numerous challenges for Indira; however, her open mindedness and creativity has helped her find a solution with ease. Lastly, the leadership styles adopted by Indira help her come up with solutions that can be depended upon by the entire organization. It is clear that Nooyi is a strong leader who will not let challenges dim her path.

Leadership Style Comparison

Indira Nooyi is a dynamic leader who would not depend on one leadership style to give direction to an entire organization. The company boasts of more than 3000 employees, and this has to require the input of various leadership approaches. Indira combines various styles and balances them to find the perfect solution for the organization (Leadership. n.d.). While she uses situational leadership styles in most cases, her predecessor used a combination of both participating leadership and delegative leadership style. During his helm at the company, Mike focused on character, competency, commitment, and compassion to change the fortunes of the company. While Indira focus is on the value of teamwork, her predecessor focused on solid leadership, cultural identity and integrity (Rao & Purkayastha, 2017). The leadership styles are different, but they allow the employees to give their inputs while leaving the leaders with the power to make the final decision. In my opinion, Indira is seen to be more effective because she has been able to achieve so much since she took over the position.

Personal Reflection

Becoming a successful leader requires one to be able to identify their strengths, abilities, passion, and goals while at the same time working to improve on their weaknesses. In as much I cannot copy Indira entirely in all her aspects as a leader, there are values which are central to her and can be used to propel my leadership journey ahead. First and foremost, Indira is a great communicator who uses the tools of communication to share organizational goals with the employees. Her ability to build empathy and relate to the rest of the employees is an indication that she is a great leader (Singh & Useem, 2016). Personally, empathy appears to be a great value by which a leader can use to reinforce the value of relationships at the workplace. Her attitude towards finding purpose is a great insight that can be relied upon during the decision making process. Her idea of situational leadership is great because it is by it that one can find a right and easy way to fix the wrong aspects of an organization. Based on her experience at Pepsi, she has been able to use some principles which are tested and are deemed right in an organizational context. Lastly, her desire to learn and be ahead of the rest is an important aspect that has helped her remain relevant and ready to innovate for Pepsi.

Leadership Outline

Indira Nooyi

Leadership Theory

Greatest Career Achievement

Career Challenges

Solving Challenges

Leadership Style Comparison

Personal Reflection

References

Leadership. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pepsico.com/About/leadership

Rao, A. S., & Purkayastha, D. (2017). Sustainable development at PepsiCo. In Case Studies in             Sustainability Management (pp. 77-98). Routledge.

Singh, H., & Useem, M. (2016). The Strategic Leader’s Roadmap: 6 Steps for Integrating Leadership and Strategy. Wharton Digital Press.

Studies in Leadership Indra Nooyi. (2013, December 20). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/hkbxajEiogw