5 essential skills for future leaders from PepsiCo's CEO

Indra Nooyi - PEPSICO's Global Chief Executive Officer

PepsiCo is the 2nd largest Food & Beverages company of the world and overall ranks 137 in the fortune 500 list 2014. The CEO of this giant company is Indra Nooyi an India born American. She herself ranks 13 in Fortune 100 list of most powerful women on 2014.
Born to a Tamil family in India, after graduating in India she later moved to USA to get her Master's degree from Yale, where she also worked part time as a receptionist to make ends meet.
We can all take a page out of her book. Being a powerful leader herself, when asked what skills or experiences are essential for future leaders, she shared the 5C's of leadership. They are as follows:

1- Competency

You must have a specific set of skills at which you're great. You must be the go to person for something. Unless you're not really known for something and just as a generalist, you don't stand out from the pack. And in order to be really good at something, you've got to be a life long student as you have to constantly refine your knowledge, so that you remain ahead of everything that goes on in that field.

2- Courage & Confidence

You can be very, very competent, but unless you're not willing to speak out, to have the confidence based on your knowledge, what's the point. So courage and confidence are very important.

3- Communication skills 

You cannot over invest in communication skills. Written and oral communication skills, because as a leader you constantly have to mobilize people. She shared that when she came to USA, while studying at Yale, she took active part in debates. But she used to speak quite fast, as was her culture back in India being from a Tamil family. She failed a course in communication due to this. So in the summer break, she worked her, improved her communication, slowed down her pace and she passed. She urges everyone to invest in communication skills, it is critically important. 

4- Consistency 

It is important that you are consistent. You can change your mind, but change your mind against a consistent framework, because if you're not consistent people will always second guess what you're doing. So be consistent.

5- Compass

Integrity is critical. You can be competent, courageous, have confidence, be a great communicator, be consistent but if you don't have integrity that compass doesn't point true north, everything comes crashing down as we have seen in recent times.