Depending on their point of view one may think of Pepsi as a tasty beverage, a sugary, chemically filled drink, or a business conglomerate. However, few think of Pepsi as a company that is socially responsible. However from reading the article, “Why Sustainability Is Winning Over CEOs”, it is clear that this is exactly the direction that PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi and her team of sustainability directors are headed. The article describes how PepsiCo’s Walker potato chip plant plans to use the steam from their exhaust stacks to recapture water and use that to clean equipment, the potatoes, and even irrigate the shrubs in the facility. Their sustainability manager, Martyn Seal, contends that this will save the plant $1 million annually and take the plant off the public water system. Once these recollection systems are realized, PepsiCo plans to make them standard in the rest of their plants worldwide, which means that as a company they stand to save considerable amounts of money. The article goes one to state that companies who are beginning to become more proactive in approaching sustainable means of business are in line to see big profits as sustainability is becoming a factor to building brand image.
Like most sustainable leaders, Indra K. Noovi exemplifies authentic leadership. In class we discussed the various factors relating to authentic leadership including the positive psychological capacities and the moral reasoning capacities. Indra K. Noovi certainly represents the positive psychological capacities of optimism and resilience through her continued efforts to pursue these green and sustainable operation practices and her commitment to using them throughout the PepsiCo businesses. She also demonstrates the moral reasoning capacity of promoting justice and greater good of the organization or community by utilizing sustainable initiatives that are not only good for the environment but also benefit the company and community by saving them money and keeping their operations off the public water system. Another way that Indra K. Noovi relates to what we have discussed is her leadership role as a woman. She represents only 2% of working women in her leadership position of CEO of PepsiCo. Because of this Indra is one of the few women working that has effectively broken the glass ceiling and through her success at PepsiCo she is helping shatter stereotypes that are holding women back from higher leadership positions.
Attached below is a link to the article
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_15/b4223025579541.htm
-Sean Morton
I completely agree with what you are saying Sean. She is definitely considered an authentic leader in my book. To add, would it be accurate to say that she is a "Woman in Leadership?" With this, I propose that she has probably had to face some hardships along the way to become the leader that she is today. To analyze this, you can take a look at the Leadership Labyrinth in our text. This model analyzes three different aspects as to what a woman leader has to overcome. The three aspects are: Human Capital (education, experience etc.), Gender Differences (style, traits, negotiation, etc.), and Prejudice (stereotypes, biases, etc.) By showing how she was able to overcome these various aspects or perfect them, it will lend to her credibility of being an authentic leader. Thank you, and great article and reasoning.
ReplyDelete-Jeff Parrish
I agree with both posted points of view on the authentic leadership aspects of Nooyi, and I think part of the reason she is so obviously authentic is the transactional nature of the sustainability manager. From what I could gather from the article, it appears that Nooyi really believes that her actions are in line with "the right thing to do." This represents a dedication to the improvement process of authentic leadership, while Martyn Seal (sustainability manager), seems most interested in the seven-digit-savings that Pepsi can realize through the efforts. I think part of the reason Pepsi is seeing success in this area is because of that balance between authentic and transactional leadership. I also think it's worth mentioning that this contributor is comforted by the fact that the values-based, genuine leader is at the wheel for Pepsi and the transactional leader constitutes her supporting staff.
ReplyDelete-Kyle Hines
I personally felt that this article screamed out ethical theories more than it did authentic leadership.
ReplyDeleteNot only is this good for business, but these practices are good for society. This leads me to my stance that these initiatives represent utilitarianism. This may seem very similar to my post about Facebook above (that’s because it is).
Ethical theories fall into two distinct categories, those that deal with conduct of leaders’ actions, and those that are concerned with character, or who the leader is as a person. Those that deal with conduct are then split into two categories, as well: teleological theories, those that stress consequences of leaders’ actions, and deontological theories, which emphasize the duty or rules which direct their actions.
Teleological theories are broken down even further into three approaches: ethical egoism, utilitarianism, and altruism. Ethical egoism is representative of a leader who acts so as to create the greatest good for themselves. Utilitarianism is representative of a leader who acts so as to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Lastly, altruism is representative of a leader who acts so as to create the greatest good for other people.
I personally feel that the business decisions outlined above are a product of teleological utilitarianism. Perhaps I’m being a bit naïve, but I would like to think that these business leaders are in business to do something good for the greatest number of people. By practicing sustainable business practices, they are not only saving money for themselves, they are enabling our society to have a better future.
Posted By: Michael Condupa
It is amazing to see what things people can do to safe money that they never would have thought of before. From using the steam from their exhaust pipes they can stop using the public water system. And just by making this little change that should cost them very little to implement, they can save $1 million a year. I would agree that this article had a lot to do with leadership ethics. Nooyi is making a socially responsible decision that will affect a large number of stakeholders. By making this decision they will also give themselves a competitive advantage over some of their competitors. I am glad to see that more and more CEOs are making decisions that benefit not only stockholders, but all of the stakeholders.
ReplyDeletePosted by: Jason Svela