[1]The three traits Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella looks for in leaders:

    When Satya Nadella [2]joined Microsoft in 1992 at the age of 25, the
    future CEO, an [3]engineer by training, did not yet hold a business
    degree. He would complete his MBA at the University of Chicago five
    years later, without taking time off from his full-time job. Every
    Friday night, Nadella would board a plane from Seattle to Chicago,
    and return by Monday morning.

    "It used to blow me away, how hard he used to work," former
    Microsoft executive Sanjay Parthasarathy, now CEO of Indix, [4]told
    Business Insider.

    Last month, Nadella, who [5]succeeded Steve Ballmer as head of
    Microsoft in 2014, visited his alma mater, where he was interviewed
    on stage by Madhav Rajan, dean of the University of Chicago's Booth
    School of Business.

    In a talk before MBA students, he said that a lot of business school
    students were, like him, fairly experienced and knowledgeable before
    they had even started their studies. What he said school could offer
    them, among other things, is an opportunity to cultivate leadership
    traits, including the three attributes he said Microsoft looks for
    in job candidates.

    As it happens, much of his guidance serves as decent life advice,
    too.

Attribute #1: The ability to create clarity when none exists

    This is "the most important attribute that any leader needs to
    have-and it is often underestimated," said Nadella. "You don't need
    a leader when everything is well defined and it's easy, and all you
    have got to do is follow a well-written plan. But in an ambiguous
    situation, where there cannot be complete information, that is when
    leadership will matter."

    He continued: "The people who are capable of getting into a
    situation where there is in some sense panic, and who can bring
    first clarity on what to do next-that is invaluable."

Attribute #2: A knack for sparking energy

    Along with clarity, a leader needs to bring sincere enthusiasm,
    Nadella argued. "One of the classic things you face as a leader is,
    you will have someone walk into your office and say, 'Hey you know
    what, I'm very good, my team is very good, but everything around me
    is terrible,'" he said. "That's not creating energy."

    This is a theme Nadella also visits in [6]his recent memoir, Hit
    Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a
    Better Future for Everyone (Harper Collins, 2017). "Leaders generate
    energy, not only on their own teams but across the company," he
    writes. "It's insufficient to focus exclusively on your own unit.
    Leaders need to inspire optimism, creativity, shared commitment and
    growth through times good and bad."

    To be a leader, he told Booth students, "you have got to be at your
    evangelical best. You have got to have [7]followership all around
    you."

Attribute #3: An ability to succeed in "an over-constrained space"

    His advice for cultivating a third trait feels applicable to anyone,
    not only those who are ambitious in business. "When leaders come in
    and say, 'I'm not able to do this or I'm not able to drive success
    or achieve success because of all these exogenous factors.' Guess
    what? Everything is exogenous," he said. "Life is an over-constraint
    problem. So you can't say, 'You know what, I'm just waiting for you
    to remove all the constraints, and I'll be perfect.'

  (Via [8]Quartz)

  This article speaks to me in ways I want some more time to reflect on.

  However, attribute #3 is Stoic to me. It's another way of saying "The
  obstacle is the way".
  Also on:

  [9]Twitter
    __________________________________________________________________

  My original entry is here: [10]The three traits Microsoft CEO Satya
  Nadella looks for in leaders. It posted Thu, 08 Nov 2018 13:59:43
  +0000.
  Filed under: business,

References

  1. https://qz.com/work/1452282/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-looks-for-three-traits-in-leaders/
  2. https://www.geekwire.com/2017/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-recounts-first-time-meeting-steve-ballmer-1992/
  3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthickey/2014/02/04/nadella-is-the-kind-of-ceo-microsoft-needs-an-engineer/#3bdf38267283
  4. https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-work-ethic-chicago-mba-2015-11
  5. http://time.com/4129/who-is-satya-nadella/
  6. https://qz.com/1086618/satya-nadella-takes-control-of-the-microsoft-narrative-with-his-book-hit-refresh-msft/
  7. https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/followership-the-other-side-of-leadership/
  8. https://cms.qz.com/feed/
  9. https://twitter.com/prjorgensen/status/1060533475332276224
 10. https://www.prjorgensen.com/?p=2254