Indra K. Nooyi, the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, gave this advice at the Tsinghua Management Global Forum at Tsinghua University on October 23.

 Curiosity

Successful business leaders remain curious throughout their careers. That insatiable drive for knowledge and the refusal to accept what you are told at face value is something the business world cannot do without. If there are three points made in a presentation, I want to know about the three points that aren't there. I want to know what's beyond the presentation.

My insatiable need to know and ask "why" has helped me many times over the course of my career.

So if you ever don't understand a concept, take the time to learn about it. Ask questions. Over prepare. Don't stop asking "why" until you get to the core of an issue.

Not once in the history of business has an executive been faulted for knowing too much.

Creativity

To act on that curiosity, you must have creativity.

To me, creativity means the ability to look at a product or process and say, "Is there another, better way we can do it? How can we completely reconceptualize it?"

When Jack Ma set out to become a successful businessman, he didn't come up with ideas that were mere improvements on what everyone else was doing. He sat with his painfully slow dial-up connection, saw the amazing power of the Internet, and built a series of companies that treated business in way that no one in China had ever done before. He reconceptualized what the Internet could be.

It's hard to believe, but there used to be no such thing as cola, let alone Pepsi-Cola. There used to be no such thing as potato chips, let alone Lay's. Individuals had to be creative enough to think about the food and beverage space and say, "We're missing something."

Citizenship

If you want to have a profitable, successful business that stands the test of time, you cannot do it without a strong commitment to responsible citizenship.

What I am talking about is the good a company can do by how it does business. I am talking about running a company that creates sustained value for shareholders, for consumers, for employees and for communities alike. 

Products like Lipton Milk Tea and Mirinda Dark Plum have contributed fantastically to our bottom line—as have our new Quaker oatmeal products with fiber, iron and calcium, nutrients that many Chinese consumers are not getting enough of in their current diets.

And PepsiCo has an office of diversity and inclusion to ensure more women and diverse candidates are hired and promoted through the ranks. As of this fall, 54% of our team members in the Greater China Region are women, and women comprise 47% of our senior management team—including the president of PepsiCo China, Katty Lam.

This isn't just the right thing to do. It's the only way to be successful in the marketplace.

Courage

My fourth piece of advice is that when you embark on a journey to rapidly shift the course of business—when you as a leader refuse to sacrifice long-term sustainability for short term profits at the expense of society, you must have courage.

When I joined the senior leadership of PepsiCo, it quickly became clear to me that the world was on a path that made our business strategy unsustainable.

We needed a wide range of good-for-you, better-for-you, and fun-for-you products. Similarly, we needed to tailor our products for consumers in all of our growth regions.

So I pushed to acquire the Tropicana juice company, as well as Quaker Oats, which also brought in Gatorade. We also established a global R&D department that focused on lowering the salt, sugar and saturated fats in our core snacks and beverages.

Today, we have leading positions and the most trusted brands in the four most important nutrition areas: grains, fruits and vegetables, sports nutrition, and dairy. One-fifth of our company's revenue now comes from nutrition and we're well positioned to capitalize on the growing consumer demand for convenient nutrition because of our investments.

Communication

My fifth and final piece of advice is that to be a great leader, you must be an effective communicator. Communication is the conduit—the tubes and the wires—for every single part of business.

The best investment you can make in your future success is in communication skills. Spend the time and money to improve them. Get more language skills. You may be a phenomenal communicator in China—but when you play on a global scale—that isn't going to be enough.