Career Advice from Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Business

In just three short years, Mary Barra has made quite a name for herself: After becoming the first female to head the nation's largest auto company amid scandal and floundering sales, Barra has overseen something of a resurgence for GM: Earnings for the car company doubled from 2014 to 2015, and 2016 is looking to be even better. You can call her Detroit's comeback queen. The most powerful woman in business has worked at GM since she graduated from college in 1985.

In an interview with Refinery29 last year, Barra said,

Wherever you are in your career — your first position, or a manager, or even an executive — you have to be ready to stand up for yourself. But, it should be done in a firm but respectful way. Always remember, respect is earned. Learning to read the situation is also important. Most of all, never waver on integrity. If someone calls you bossy because you didn’t let them push you around, so be it.

Read Next: Mary Barra is Changing GM’s Culture—Now Can She Move Its Stock?

Indra Nooyi has been Pepsi's CEO for a decade, and has been at the company for over 20 years in total. In that time, she's helped the company acquire major brands like Tropicana, Gatorade, and Quaker Oats. PepsiCo's market cap is up 18% in the past 12 months, according to Fortune, and investors are optimistic.

How'd she become the top executive at one of the world's largest companies? Nooyi told Fortune in 2014 that her best career advice was to "never stop learning," continuing,

Whether you’re an entry level employee fresh out of college or a CEO, you don't know it all. Admitting this is not a sign of weakness. The strongest leaders are those who are lifelong students.

 

As the top-ranking official at the world's largest defense contractor, Marillyn Hewson has overseen record profits and doubled the company's stock price. She's been at the company for over 30 years, and worked her way up from engineer to CEO.

In a LinkedIn post, Hewson detailed five strategies for advancing your career. The main takeaway? The more opportunities and risks you take, the better.

It may seem daunting to take on a stretch assignment and growth opportunity, but it is the absolute best way to learn, expand and advance your career.

No matter what you want to achieve, the most important thing is to never set limits on yourself. Taking on new challenges is an important way to develop to your fullest potential -- and have a more interesting career along the way.

The first female CEO of IBM, Ginni Rometty has worked at the tech company for more than three decades, first as a systems engineer and later as a Senior Vice President before taking over as CEO in 2011.

At Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in 2015, she said her best career advice for women is to "be comfortable with the fact that growth and comfort don't co-exist." While women tend to be risk averse, Rometty encourages risk-taking throughout your career. It was something she first elaborated on at the 2011 MPW Summit, just after being named CEO.

I always say, you know, if I sit here and close my eyes and say, when did I learn the most in my life, in my career? It’ll always be when I close them and everything I think of is when I took a risk. It’s when I think I learned the most.

With a net worth estimated at $13.1 billion by Forbes, Abigail Johnson is not only one of the wealthiest people in the world, she's also one of the most powerful in the financial sector. Johnson became the head of Fidelity Investments in 2014. The company is currently the nation's second-largest mutual fund company, managing over $2 trillion in assets.

In an interview with Moira Forbes, Johnson says the best advice she got from her father, former Fidelity CEO Edward "Ned" Johnson III, was to adopt "a relentless focus on continuing to try to improve everything you do" no matter how high up you get in an organization. She also advocated for a creative approach to business, saying the answer to a problem may be something that no one's ever tried before.

Trust your instincts. Lots of people will give you advice, and depending on how well they know you, the advice might be valid or not so valid. But at the end of the day, you know yourself best and you know what works best for you...Don't doubt yourself. Keep at it, stay looking ahead, stay committed, and stay true to yourself.

One of the most famous women on the list, Facebook COO and billionaire Sheryl Sandberg has made a name for herself as an advocate for working women. With stints at McKinsey & Company, Google, and now the world's top social media channel, she surely has the experience.

In a post on Quora, Sandberg advised workers to have a long-term dream and a short-term plan. And, of course, believe you can do anything.

This is important for everyone and especially for women. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t have both a meaningful professional career and a fulfilling personal life. When you hear someone say you can’t do something, know that you can and start figuring out how. Ask yourself, 'What would I do if I weren’t afraid?'

Meg Whitman has been the head of HP since 2011. Whitman has long been an advocate for working women: Early in her career at Procter & Gamble, Whitman shook up the company culture by questioning why women weren't allowed to travel alone for business (or get a corporate credit card), according to Business Insider.

In 2005, Whitman advised women to get over their imposter syndrome.

Remember that you can do anything you want to do. Don't let anyone say, 'You're not smart enough... it's too hard... it's a dumb idea...no one has done that before...girls don't do that.' My mom gave me that advice in 1973. And it allowed me to never worry about what others were saying about my career direction.

As she told Forbes, it's something she learned firsthand at her job at Disney in the 1980s.

Frank Wells, who was COO, told me, ‘You are just as smart as these guys. You have to speak up in meetings. You have to make yourself say stuff.’ That was an important turning point to me. I had thought that unless I say something brilliant, I shouldn’t say anything. Three quarters of the other people were saying stupid stuff.

Phebe Novakovic, a former CIA operative, is "thriving" as the head of General Dynamics, according to Fortune. The Washington Business Journal reports the company's stock has risen about 100% under her stewardship. In fact, 2015's record $3 billion profit was a 17% increase from 2014, according to Fortune.

Those who know her say she takes an "unemotional" approach to her work. It's something that came across during a rare interview with Carlyle Group CEO David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. earlier this year, when she said:

Performance speaks for itself and, absent performance, you really don’t have anything to say. Results are, at the end of the day, all that really do matter.

Irene Rosenfield so impressed Warren Buffett when she was CEO of Kraft back in 2007 that he bought 8.6% of its stock, according to ABC News, and she turned the underperforming company around. "I used the phrase 'Let’s Get Growing' from the day I returned, and it became a rallying cry for our transformation," she told the Public Relations Society of America of her time at Kraft. Now, as CEO of the smaller Mondelez International, Rosenfield is under pressure to grow again.

Rosenfield has said she was lucky that companies didn't focus on the fact that she was a female, rather just that she was a good worker. Still, she acknowledges companies have a long way to go when it comes to diversifying their ranks. She encourages her workers to know what they want and what's important to them in their career.

'Make a difference' and 'take risks' are the two best pieces of advice that I provide to anyone who aspires to leadership. But I’ll add another piece of advice that’s particularly important for women: 'Ask for what you want.'

Girls are not socialized to toot their own horns. But bosses aren’t mind readers. Speak up and let people know what you’ve done and what you want.

Oracle's Safra Catz is the highest-paid female exec in the country, having received a $56.9 million pay package in 2015, according to Bloomberg. She started at the tech company in 1999 as a senior vice president, later becoming co-president and CFO and, in 2014, co-CEO. She's responsible for the manufacturing, finance, and legal divisions.

In a post for Fortune, Catz said leaders should learn to listen, think, and not be afraid to change their position.

Don’t just go through the motions in meeting after meeting. Your colleagues and employees have spent time and effort making a case and advocating for a position, so let them finish. And don’t just listen to them, but hear their arguments and really think through their explanations.