Indra Nooyi: A Legendary CEO With Outstanding Leadership Performance - Essay Sample

Introduction

It is recommendable to grade Indra Nooyi, an Indian American business magnate and former CEO of PepsiCo as an excellent leader due to her outstanding performance at the company. Nooyi strategically identified the needs of PepsiCo's customers and no longer associated profit with sales cost (Nevins, 2019). The legendary CEO had much strength than weaknesses in her leadership. For instance, Nooyi raised the conscience of PepsiCo to view all potential opportunities for growth in a sustainable perspective, apart from making it a better place to work. Also, Nooyi inspired PepsiCo's stakeholders to have an exemplary performance with the purpose of ensuring that they attain operational sustainability. The former CEO's weakness lay in the failure of the company to performer lower than its chief competitor, Coca-Cola (Hao & Yazdanifard, 2015). However, Nooyi remains a level 5 executive under the level-5 pyramid of strategic leadership because she significantly revolutionized PepsiCo into one of the world's best-performing companies in the highly competitive beverage industry.

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What to do When One's Vision Do not Lead to Immediate Competitive Advantage

According to Wiener-Bronner (2018), many strategic leaders work to develop appropriate visions that, in turn, help their organizations to achieve immediate financial, competitive advantage. However, this competitive advantage may be difficult to attain in some companies, as seen in the case of PepsiCo. As a result, a typical strategic leader must undertake various strategies to achieve this critical goal. First, the strategic leader should identify all areas of weaknesses in which the company performs below its targets before developing practical approaches to recover its performance as best as possible (Nevins, 2019). For instance, if the company is not gaining a competitive advantage due to the low-quality of goods and services, it should empower and motivate its employees to improve their performance.

Tohidi & Jabbari (2012) contended that strategic leaders should ensure that they exclusively focus on the products and services that can satisfy the needs of their customers at that particular time. Secondly, the organization should focus on selling products and providing services that are highly-favored by its target customers. Strengthening such products by improving their production processes to enhance their taste and value can also be critical for companies like PepsiCo to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals in the short-run (Nevins, 2019). Lastly, strategic leaders can develop appropriate strategies to differentiate their products from those of their competitors, as seen in the case of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, to attain an increase in its competitive advantage.

Personal Position Regarding Nooyi's Philosophy

I strongly support Indra Nooyi's philosophy of performance and purpose, having an intimate link to the extent that one cannot exist without the other. Leaders must communicate and share their strategic goals and objectives with their employees to ensure that they perform exemplarily and remain committed to meeting the desired organizational success (Hao & Yazdanifard, 2015). Understanding the purpose of performing and operating in a certain way is crucial because it provides the organization and its workforce an appropriate direction to follow to meet the desired goals and objectives in the long-run. Lastly, understanding the purpose as to why the management requires employees to perform in a particular way is crucial because it helps organizations to remain competitive and improve the level of their performance (Wiener-Bronner, 2018). Therefore, having a performance purpose is a critical source of motivation, inspiration, and encouragement for employees to execute their tasks exemplarily.

Sources of PepsiCo's Future Growth

Many investors work to ensure that they grow the share of an organization and, in turn, realize growth in terms of sales, revenues, and profitability (Jalagat, 2016). Therefore, such investors must have a detailed understanding of the potential sources of investment to achieve growth in the future. PepsiCo's investors have a plethora of sources that they can utilize to attain future growth. For instance, the company's investors can obtain future growth from having a strong dedication to promote the consumption of healthier diets and lifestyles, which resonates with the needs and preferences of the current generations. The company can also invest in continuous research to understand changes in customer's demand and develop new products as well as services that can meet these needs (Tohidi & Jabbari, 2012). For example, PepsiCo's shareholders can invest in the fast-food industry to attain future growth.

References

Hao, M. J. & Yazdanifard, R. (2015). How effective leadership can facilitate change in organizations through improvement and innovation. Global Journal of Management and Business Research: An Administration and Management, 15(9), 112-117. Retrieved from: https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume15/1-How-Effective-Leadership.pdf.

Jalagat, R. (2016). The impact of change and change management in achieving corporate goals and objectives: Organisational perspective. International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 5(11), 1233-1239. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310828676_The_Impact_of_Change_and_Change_Management_in_Achieving_Corporate_Goals_and_Objectives_Organizational_Perspective.

Tohidi, H., & Jabbari, M. M. (2012). The important of innovation and its crucial role in growth, survival and success of organisations. Procedia Technology, 1 (2), 535-538. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212017312001.

Wiener-Bronner, D. (2018 August). How Indra Nooyi built Pepsi for the future. CNN. https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/07/news/companies/indra-nooyi-legacy/index.html.

Nevins, M. (2019 February). Becoming a strategic leader. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hillennevins/2019/02/18/becoming-a-strategic-leader/#1cc6f8775d68.