Leadership Lessons: The MV Co Is Having (not) a Nadellaissance (maybe Satyaissance)
Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has more subscribers than Netflix, more cloud computing revenue than Google, and a near-trillion-dollar market cap.
Satya means truth.
Bloomberg calls it the miracle of MS. Miracle happens on the rock solid human values, Satya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema, Ahimsa.
“I would be disgusted if somebody ever celebrated our market cap,” — In an era when hubris is used freely to explain leadership, this is an exception. The opposite is servant leadership, to serve the employees, customers, all stakeholders, including society/environment.
Master calls it #I2We2He
“We’re learning how not to look at the past.” — coaching is about manifesting the future, irrespective of the present. That is transformational leadership.
Nadella calls corporate “empathy” and a shift of his team from a “fixed mindset” to a “growth mindset.” — hence, Satyaissance.
“I don’t know of any other software company in the history of technology that fell onto hard times and has recovered so well,” says Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix Inc. — Rockstar Ballmer to Satya. Monkey-boy antics belonged to that era, consciousness. Now it belongs to truth, et al.
A lifelong fan, he keeps a bat autographed by the great batsman Sachin Tendulkar near his desk — that makes it human. You can not take cricket out of an Indian.
- Cloud, cloud, cloud: that is a story for future.
Nadella wrote off $7.6 billion from Ballmer’s purchase of Nokia Corp., cutting 7,800 jobs in 2015, a clear sign he was giving up on an ambition to compete directly with Google and Apple Inc. in mobile — that is affirmative, visionary, transactional leadership. You need guts to do that. All credit to Bill Gates, MS board.
