Leaders Changing Fields

     Can an outstanding leader move from one area of expertise to another and still be an outstanding leader? Lets take a look at John Sculley, a broadly diverse leader who has pioneered many industries ranging from refreshment drinks to medical fields.
     A leader has skills that are transcendent from industry to industry such as the ability to lead by example,   honesty, integrity, inspiration, vision, dedication, and knowledge. There are also many skills that need to be learned once moving form one industry to another. A leader can never stop learning. Knowledge is power. A leader has to learn the new environment, how to adequately motivate and push workers to reach the desired goal. A leader has to be aware of the outside world to have standards, to become innovative, to pursue innovation and creativity, to make a goal into a reality. The yet unlearned skills are complemented by the transcendent skills the leader posses, which can make his transition smoother, but not necessarily easy.
     There are many factors that must be considered when asking if a leader goes from one industries were he is skilled and successful at, to another industries that is completely unknown for him. Lets look at John Sculley for example. Mr. Sculley was President of PepsiCo were he managed the multi-billion dollar company and was responsible for the oversight, financial, logistics, and marketing of PepsiCo. Now, being able to sell refreshment drinks to multinational restaurants and international does not encompass the same duties he had to do when he was CEO of Apple. The leadership skills he must demonstrate are completely different. Apple Corp does things very systematically at a high level of professionalism since it invests billions of dollars in the process of product development  so for Mr. Sculley motivating, directing, inspiring, and managing employees for Apple Corp compared to PepsiCo was completely different.
     Success followed Mr Sculley who's transcendent skills were carried over from one job like PepsiCo to Apple and through an intensive learning process, he was able to acquire others leaderships skills that were necessary to succeed in that whole new field. The knowldge allowed for him to set new grounds for development which spurred creativity and under his command Apple was able to dazzle the world with tables. Now many of today's most popular activities are done on an Apple platform, playing games, shopping, drawing, finances, and many other things can all be done on an iPad.
      So yes, I believe that leaders can go from one field of expertise to a complete different area and still be outstanding leaders, but it all depends on the time and effort they put in to become influential leaders for others to follow their vision.