'Stay true to yourself', top GM Exec tells Dubai's future business leaders

"Economies change, governments change, and technology changes, but your values remain a constant," said Maureen Kempston Darkes, group vice president of General Motors and president, Latin America, Africa and Middle East.

Addressing a networking lunch of Mohammed Bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development during the Dubai motor show, she told young people being mentored under the program: "Choose values that sustain you, reflect who you are, and give you comfort and strength as a person.

"Let your values guide you - as I can assure you they will be called upon many times. Develop your values, build your values and rely upon them in difficult situations."

Kempston Darkes' advice prompted intense questioning, and the session was extended by almost half an hour as she was asked for advice on how to resolve conflicts between personal and corporate values.

"I was very impressed by the sensitivity shown to this issue," she said afterwards. "The young people in the mentoring program clearly have strong willingness to understand how values can assist and drive successes and achievements.

"My advice was to try and achieve change from within, but if this proved impossible, not to compromise. Rather seek a new business environment that shares the same values and appreciates them."

Earlier, Kempston Darkes told her audience that people are at the centre of all we do and that each person's contribution impacts on the overall success of an organisation.

"It is imperative that we provide the proper support system to experience professional growth, while driving for results," she said. "It is always better to have someone who is experienced giving you first-hand direction in your job and your mentoring program appears to be designed to do just that."

There was no magical formula or mysterious or complicated philosophy to management success, she said, but outlined basic guidelines some 'rules of the management road'. Key priorities were to focus on results, but how these results are achieved was as important as the results themselves.

'Knowing your customer' was equally important and at GM, her goal was to have 'customers for life'.

"To do that, I must ensure that we have the best products, the right services, and the best ownership experience", she explained. "If I do it right, why would customers look outside of GM for their automotive needs?"

She advised her audience to seek out the very best talent, empower people, focus on teamwork, and to value the diversity within their organisations. Successful leaders were capable of creating relationships - with governments, employees, unions, retailers, and alliance/business partners, and by focusing on stretch goals they accomplished more by reaching higher than just aiming for safe results.

She identified key personal qualities as enthusiasm, resilience, being positive yet realistic, and 'knowing what you don't know'.

But the most important factor of all was 'attitude'. "For me, I begin every day with a belief that I can and I will make a positive contribution and difference. How I react to situations is totally within my control," she said.

"Let me conclude with a paragraph from Charles Swindell that I live by and have framed and hanging on a wall in my home:

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

"The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 per cent what happens to me and 90 per cent how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes."

One of the young leaders attending lunch said that one of her stongest quotes was " Success is not final and Failure is never fatal".