When taking on a new role, it's important to create a vision and share it with those you lead. After all, it's a lot easier to get somewhere if you know where you're headed. This is exactly what Indra did when she transitioned from CFO to CEO of PepsiCo.

Despite Indra's track record as an amazing functional leader, she was still nervous about taking on the top position at PepsiCo.

She knew that moving from CFO to CEO would give her a whole different view of the company. So, she did her research with her new role in mind: she watched the economy, looked at the trends and discovered rocky times were ahead. She saw a looming financial crisis and tremendous growth in emerging markets. Indra's big question was: how will we navigate as a company through these changes?

"There was a lot of anxiety when I took over," she told me. "I realized that I could have all the anxieties inside, but to the company I had to project confidence, optimism, a can-do spirit and a must-do resolve."

I was curious about what tricks she used to get herself ready to project confidence, and she shared some great advice for anyone taking on a new leadership role.

She said leaders need to be honest. "The one thing I've learned is don't lie to the people," she told me. "Don't tell your people one thing when the reality is something different."

Leaders also need to communicate their plans. Indra told her team exactly what they would do in the short-term, medium-term and long-term. "I told them they needed to just keep the performance going in the short-term. The medium-term focus was on what kind of acquisitions we were going to make to bolster the company's portfolio in emerging and developing markets. For the long-term, we were going to invest in R&D, start the portfolio transformation to put in place multiple initiatives which will not pay out today, but require investment today to pay out in the long-term."

Indra admitted she was uneasy because she didn't know if people would buy into her plan. To her surprise, people did and were relieved because they saw the changing trends and her plans addressed them. Her shared vision helped everyone understand where PepsiCo was going next.