Ryan, our CEO at LinkedIn, recently shared the highlights of an interview with Satya Nadella, his boss and CEO at Microsoft. Satya has architected one of the great corporate turnaround stories during his time as Microsoft’s leader.
There were 3 insights from the interview that resonated deeply with me –
On focusing on the job at hand – “There was never a time where I thought the job I was doing, all through my 30 years of Microsoft, that somehow I was doing that as a way to some other job. I felt the job I was doing there was the most important thing. I genuinely felt it.”
On preparing to become CEO without focusing on it as the end goal – “It’s not like the day before I was CEO somebody said, ‘You’re gonna be CEO.’ At some point things happen. You are the CEO and the question is, have you prepared all your life to be there, without having made that the goal?”
On three traits he sees in leaders – Leaders bring clarity to ambiguous situations, create energy, and can work with what’s in front of them to help un-constrain the team. In his words – “Leaders don’t wait for the perfect pitch or the perfect weather to perform, you gotta take the hand you’ve been dealt and with all the constraints.”
