Jo Anne Brandes spent most of her career examining the qualities of corporate leaders. By observing and interacting with leaders in the workplace, Brandes deconstructed all forms of leadership. She recognizes and understands the qualities that inspire and motivate – and the ones that strike fear and intimidation. She knows which qualities have positive effects on employees and move companies in the direction of success; and the ones that don’t.

Brandes, 56, has taken what she has learned and experienced to establish the Carroll University Center for Leadership and Excellence, a place where high-potential candidates come to be trained in principled-based leadership.

The Center for Leadership and Excellence is a perfect fit for Brandes who retired after 25 years with S.C. Johnson as the executive vice president, chief administrative officer and general counsel of JohnsonDiversy Inc. She was responsible for all legal matters, human resources, public affairs and administration for the company and its more than 65 international and domestic subsidiaries.

After retirement, she was a free agent and corporations from around the country sought out her expertise. “When I retired, people wanted me to speak about my experiences, leadership and women in the workplace. But I had worked so long and hard, I didn’t know how I felt about all of that. It took me a year of talking with people and reading everything from my old journals to letters from my father before I really knew what I wanted to say,” Brandes explains.

When Brandes got out of law school in the late ‘70s, she interviewed at a prestigious law firm in Oregon. At the interview, Brandes recalled one of the firm’s partners told her, “There is no way in the world this firm will hire you. You have a bigger handicap than being deaf, blind or incapacitated. You’re a woman.”

“Every time I felt there was something like that in my career, I just told myself to move on, move on, move on and never look back. You can’t move forward if you’re always looking back,” she says.

“You have to empower yourself. And make a difference when you can; to work to give someone else something more than you had and to not have the same adversities to overcome. Don’t compromise your values and principles to achieve your goals,” Brandes says almost as if it were a sacred mantra.

Leadership goes beyond competent management. “True leaders walk the talk, and have the courage to look beyond corporate quarterly reports and to build consensus. Leadership is never arrogant or self-serving. It’s not afraid to initiate change and to move forward to create a culture of respect and trust instead of fear and intimidation,” Brandes says.

When Brandes started out as a corporate attorney, she was appalled at how the workplace treated women who were having children. When Brandes was raising her children – Julianne, 26, and Adrian, 17, she often worked overloaded days with 60- and 80-hour work weeks. “There was no one who would take up the slack for me. It was very difficult. Women are faced with how to balance it all. Family-work balance has to be a greater priority for companies,” she says.

Whether Brandes knew it at the time, it was her leadership that made the corporate environment better for employees and, ultimately, the bottom line.

Twenty-four years ago, when she had the idea to start a family-care center at Johnson Wax in Racine, it was a revolutionary concept. The corporate culture at the time wanted to form committees and conduct studies to flesh out its viability. To Brandes, that was just motion without any movement. She moved ahead. Brandes did the research, developed a business plan and budget and presented her idea for a family-care center to a room full of decision-makers – all men including Sam Johnson. She remembers thinking at the time, “This isn’t going to be an easy day.”

She began her pitch with one simple question, “Have any of you spent even five minutes of your working day worrying about who’s taking care of your children?” From that meeting came real change for the employees and their families at S.C. Johnson. The center started with 78 children and now serves more than 600. Sam Johnson called the family-care center the “best business decision I’ve ever made.”

In corporate cultures, the decision-makers are predominately men. “Women are not on boards. You need women on boards to ask the question, ‘Why is your corporate leadership male?’ And women in leadership roles need to speak up and to say what affects women in the workplace,” Brandes says.

Finding solutions doesn’t just make work-and-family balance easier for women, it gives corporations the ability to attract and retain outstanding employees. “The goal is to be the best and most productive company. Real leadership is looking beyond yourself; to lead in order to sustain the great company you’re creating.”

Brandes currently sits on five corporate boards and many community and non-profit boards. “Today, boards have to be stronger than ever before. They have a fiduciary responsibility like never before.”

Women don’t advance the corporate ladder nor are they appointed to boards like men, Brandes says, “not because they lack skills and talent, but because they haven’t received the same opportunities.” Regardless of gender, Brandes says, “be very good at what you do and people will pay attention. Bring value.”

She has been called “a force of nature,” and “bold and fearless.” Which may be why wherever she goes, she’s been asked to lead. Leadership, Brandes says, has been her passion for the past 30 years – because nothing moves forward without it.