Seventh most powerful woman in the world speaks at UNI

When DuPont, one of the world's largest chemical companies, entered the recession in 2009, the CEO of the 209-year-old company wanted to make sure they would emerge stronger.

"It just couldn't be our goal to just weather the storm," Ellen Kullman said.

Kullman, who was named the seventh most powerful woman in the world by both Fortune and Forbes in 2009, spoke at the University of Northern Iowa Thursday about important leadership behaviors that helped her company emerge from the recession "much better positioned in every one of (its) businesses."

The first of these leadership behaviors is engagement. According to Kullman, it is extremely important for employers to engage with their employees so that they can understand what's important, have support and align around a common goal.

"When a team is aligned around a common goal, they can move mountains," she said.

Kullman held more than 60 town hall meetings with DuPont employees around the world last year, sometimes using video conferencing to save on travel costs.

The next leadership quality Kullman detailed was setting the right tone: a leader must keep in mind a group's core values and lead by example. For DuPont this meant focusing on the core values of safety, ethics, environment and treatment of people.

Kullman also said that leaders should figure out how they can be enablers and not disablers.

"That's not just cheerleading, that's sitting in the room and talking with them," she said, adding that employers need to discuss with their employees how things need to get done.

Last year, DuPont decided to enable and invest in its employees by training 200 people in supply chain techniques instead of laying them off, ultimately liberating $1 billion in cash in intervals of less than $1 million at a time.

The final leadership behavior that Kullman discussed was accountability. Kullman feels that there are two definitions for accountability: being able to make excuses for something and being committed to do everything in one's power that doesn't go against one's core values to get a task done.

Kullman also discussed the present and future of DuPont, the company responsible for the creation of such compounds as nylon and Kevlar, and looked toward the challenges and opportunities that will come with the world's growing population, which she says is projected to reach 9.3 billion people by 2050. Kullman sees this growth as an opportunity for the chemical manufacturer to develop methods for increasing crop yield, to decrease dependence on foreign oil while looking toward alternative energy sources, to increase safety in the world's cities and to help develop emerging markets in China, India and Africa.

Kullman's visit was the kick-off to a new guest lecture series featuring top corporate leaders. UNI President Benjamin Allen felt that bringing in Kullman was an excellent way to start the series.

"Ellen is clearly an important role model for girls and women," he said.

Student Body President Adam Haselhuhn, who presented a UNI t-shirt to Kullman at the end of her speech, and thought the CEO's visit was a great learning experience for UNI students and faculty.

"I think she spoke of a lot of great leadership qualities for people who are going out into the field — and I hope most UNI students are planning to become leaders in whatever industry they might choose to go into," he said. "And so she spoke to things such as accountability and engaging, and I think those are really important qualities for all students to come out of their college experience with."

Kayla Boyle, a senior chemistry major, was able to eat lunch with Kullman at President Allen's house.

"She's a very nice woman and has lots of great advice to give for up-and-coming science students as well as anyone with leadership aspirations," she said.