Traits of a Great Leader

With 55 guests attending this sold out event from businesses such as Incitec Pivot, Dyno Nobel, Asahi Beverages,  BP and Caltex, ‘Traits of a great leader’, generously hosted by PepsiCo at Tingalpa was a great success.

Big thank you to Janelle Wieden, QLD Customer Service Manager, Orora, and NAWO QLD State Committee member for providing the summary and learnings from this event…

What are the traits of a great leader? How can we develop these traits in ourselves and those around us?

Our event was about sharing real life learnings, we heard from two of PepsiCo’s leadership team members: Jolene Gibb, Frontline Manager, and Nuala Power, Production Manager.

Jolene studied marketing and dreamed of working in Nielson so took a couple of years to get a traineeship which focused on analytics.  She moved into her current role in 2013.

Key learnings from Jolene:

• A great leader provides direction, not telling how but leading to a solution.
• A leader places focus on coaching and developing team members.

The Guiding Principles the Jolene lives by include:

Transformational and motivational leadership, embracing challenges and risk and not running from them, championing talent developers, creating an inclusive culture and finally, delivering the right results and removing obstacles.

Jolene sharing her leadership journey

Nuala Power – Production Manager, joined PepsiCo in 2009 as the Planning and Performance Manager, then moved to ANZ Productivity Manager for four years before moving into her current role as Production Manager in 2016.

Nuala holds an MBA as well as a Bachelor of Science degree, has worked internationally and initially worked in technical roles for several multinationals before transferring into a leadership role.

Nuala sharing her leadership tips

Nuala’s Key Learnings:

• Don’t be afraid to borrow traits and ideas from great leaders you have worked for in the present and past, they offer great learnings.
• Great leaders need credibility; trust and integrity; vision; empathy, to be visible, be approachable and be relatable.

Following the presentations and Q&A session, participants enjoyed a plant tour “The Journey of a Potato to the Shelf” and a lovely gift bag of goodies!

Thank you, PepsiCo, for hosting this fabulous event.