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Updated: Jul 25, 2022
“Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you
can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great
leader.”
- Indra Nooyi.
Recently I've been following Indra Nooyi, former head of soft drink and snack
juggernaut, Pepsi-Co.
Indra's story is an example of why you should ignore status quo definitions of success.
☑️ She's an immigrant- born in Madras, India to a Tamil family;
☑️ She comes from a patriarchal culture- where investment in females are usually
stymied by the belief that they will leave the workplace to get married and start families.
☑️ The "Glass Ceiling"/Pay Gap in corporate America is an ongoing challenge for
women/women of colour.
However, none of these barriers affected her trajectory, which included a scholarship to
the Yale School of Management in 2008.
She's also a wife, mother and avid cricket fan.
What can we learn from her experiences and how can we apply these lessons as female entrepreneurs?
1. That limitations are largely self-imposed- as a child Indra was encouraged to imagine she was President of India; each night at dinner she had to describe how she would solve an issue/problem if she was the head of state;
2. That we are greater than our deepest fears - when she transitioned from CFO to CEO, Indra was fearful but knew that for buy-in she needed to appear confident, optimistic and resilient. 3. That we need to build a community/ tribe to stand with us. Indra saw herself as a "global shopkeeper"- during her tenure, she visited grocery stores and listened to their operational challenges - and made the necessary changes in terms of product development and design.
How many of you are still standing on the sidelines?
Drop me a line about One challenge you’re currently facing.