Open Journal of Leadership, 2021, 10, 95-109
https://www.scirp.org/journal/ojl
ISSN Online: 2167-7751
ISSN Print: 2167-7743
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007 Jun. 8, 2021
95
Open Journal of Leadership
Understanding Authentic Leadership Style:
The Satya Nadella Microsoft Approach
Deepti Prakash, Meenakshi Bisla
*
, Shweta Gupta Rastogi
University School of Management Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India
Abstract
The paper endeavours to analyze authentic dimensions of Leadership with
Satya Nadella’s leadership and his aggressive strategy leading to an increase in
Microsoft’s profitability. A total of 7 interviews of Nadella from 2014 to 2020
were coded in NVivo to prepare Word query, TreeMap and cluster analysis.
Also, besides tweets associated with #Satya Nadella were captured using
NCapture and exported to NVivo to obtain the sentiments by performing
sentiment analysis. The Twitter analysis of Nadella’s personality is majorly
positive and neutral which reflects his success and influence across the globe.
The traits of Nadella are linked with authentic leadership style. The study
discusses the latent dimensions for becoming a successful authentic leader
that is highly recommended for leaders to boost their leadership skills and
increase organization’s profitability in this competitive world.
Keywords
Satya Nadella, Profitability, Authentic Leadership, Strategy, Vision,
#SatyaNadella
1. Introduction
The scenario of corporate crises due to rising frauds and scams worldwide has
created stress among stakeholders. Stress can immensely damage the trust, the
culture can even refrain an employee from discovering its potential creativity.
These circumstances enable stakeholders to prefer leaders with higher integrity.
In this context, leadership plays an important role in encouraging creativity and
innovation among followers
(Oke, Munshi, & Walumbwa, 2009)
. In this context,
authentic leadership has gained widespread attention in organizations. Thus, by
developing the culture of authentic leadership an enhanced creative workforce
can be expected in the organization
(Chaudhary & Panda, 2018)
.
How to cite this paper: Prakash, D., Bisla,
M., & Rastogi, S. G. (2021). Understanding
Authentic Leadership Style: The Satya Na-
della Microsoft Approach. Open Journal of
Leadership, 10, 95-109.
https://doi.org/10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
Received: February 26, 2021
Accepted: June 5, 2021
Published: June 8, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and
Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International
License (CC BY 4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
96
Open Journal of Leadership
Leaders who present their true selves and lead others are known as authentic
leaders. Authentic Leadership proposed by
Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing
and Peterson (2008)
is leadership behavior pattern that includes self-awareness,
internalized moral perspective, relational transparency and balanced processing
(Gardner & Carlson, 2015;
Miao, Humphrey, & Qian, 2018)
. Millennials now
make up the largest generation in the workforce. They are better educated, more
tech-savvy, and have higher expectations than any other group prior. Millennial
Employee Engagement Study conducted by Cone Communications found that
three-fourth millennials are willing to accept a pay cut if they are working for a
socially responsible company. Besides, Generation Z members, the newbie on
the work front, values diversity when selecting a place to work. In a Forbes arti-
cle, Karl Moore (Professor at McGill University) points out: The better you are
at being an authentic leader, the more your millennial employees will appreciate
you. He adds that millennials can detect a drop of inauthenticity in an Olym-
pic-sized pool like our Caribbean reef shark friends. The actual driving force for
Microsoft’s growth and enormous profits in recent time is by endeavoring a
handful of courageous authentic decisions under the Leadership of Satya Nadella.
Microsoft’s ranking is experiencing upside down for the last six years (
Table 1
).
The magnifying glass on revenue and assets will help to identify the actual posi-
tion more precisely (
Table 1
). Microsoft is experiencing stable growth after the
change of leadership i.e., after 2014, when Nadella became the Chief Executive
Officer (CEO).
Nadella took over from Steve Ballmer in 2014 and adopted a new vision and
leadership style for Microsoft’s unique journey. This paper examines the rela-
tionship between the leadership style of Nadella and his vision which supports
the importance of precise balance between supportive leadership and innovative
organizational culture for achieving the goal of high organizational performance.
This study discusses the managerial implication for highly competitive Informa-
tion and Technology (IT) organizations worldwide. The study examines the role
of a leader in transforming a stagnant organization such as Microsoft under
Balmer before 2014 (
Table 2
) into a high technological innovator accelerating
up the scoreboard in Fortune 500 ranking. Nadella has acquired the dominant
position in both “Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year 2019” and “Best CEOs
for Diversity 2020”.
Table 1.
Microsoft’s Ranking in
Fortune 500 (2019)
under Nadella’s leadership.
Ranking
Year
Revenue ($ millions)
Profit ($ millions)
Assets ($ millions)
21
2020
125,843
39,240
286,556
26
2019
110,360
16,571
258,848
30
2018
89,950
21,204
241,086
28
2017
85,320
16,798
193,694
25
2016
93,580
12,193
176,223
31
2015
93,580
12,193
128,000
(Source:
https://fortune.com/company/microsoft/fortune500/
)
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
97
Open Journal of Leadership
Table 2.
Microsoft’s ranking in fortune 500 under Balmer’s leadership.
Year
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
Ranking
34
35
37
28
25
Revenue
77,849
73,723
69,943
---
---
(
https://fortune.com/fortune500/2012/microsoft-corporation/
)
Nadella took the challenging job as CEO of Microsoft in 2014 when Microsoft
was not at its best position. In 2014, Nadella joined as Chief Executive Officer
who helped Microsoft to extricate and faced three major challenges mentioned
below:
•
Crashed stock prices of Microsoft;
•
Competitors (Apple and Google) making super-profits;
•
Introducing new mobile technology.
Microsoft is the fourth, world’s highest valuable organization and has in-
creased its value by $250 billion
(Fox, 2019)
under Nadella’s leadership, which
makes it is the essence of this study. The paper endeavors to analyze authentic
dimensions of Leadership with
Nadella’s visionary leadership and his aggressive strategy was leading to an
increase in Microsoft’s profitability. It also discusses the latent dimensions for
becoming a successful authentic leader that are highly recommended for leaders
to boost their leadership skills and increase organization’s profitability in this
competitive world.
2. Literature Review
According to
Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing and Peterson (2008)
, au-
thentic leadership (AL) is defined as “a pattern of leader behavior that draws
upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical
climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, bal-
anced processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of
leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development”. Self-awa-
reness refers to the degree of awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses and
their impact on other people. Internalized moral perspective signifies the im-
portance of how one’s values and moral standards regulate their behaviors and
actions. Relational transparency relates to the degree to which how one shares
information and display emotions openly. Balanced processing depicts the ex-
tent to which a leader uses the available information before arriving at a decision
(Chaudhary & Panda, 2018)
. These dimensions increase the level of balanced
information treatment, transparency and relational work between a leader and
his followers, in the way that positive self-development of followers is promoted
(Semedo, Coelho, & Ribeiro, 2017)
. The dimensions of being self-aware and
relationally transparent and balanced processing of information help authentic
leaders to encourage trust and positive interpersonal relationships among their
followers
(Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004;
Walumbwa,
Luthans, Avey, & Oke, 2011)
.
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
98
Open Journal of Leadership
Authentic Leadership maximize the performance of followers and leads to
positive work-related outcomes
(Ribeiro, Gomes, & Kurian, 2018b;
Azanza,
Gorgievski, Moriano, & Molero 2018;
Imam, Naqvi, Naqvi, & Chambel, 2020)
.
Authentic leader transparency in his decisions develops follower’s commitment
and builds strong attachments to the organization
(Rukh, Shahrukh, & Iqbal,
2018;
Hlongwane & Olivier, 2017)
. Empirical studies suggested that Authentic
leadership is positively related to numerous necessary outcomes, for example,
job satisfaction, Performance and creativity
(Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, & Dick-
ens, 2011;
Ribeiro, Duarte, & Filipe, 2018a;
Ribeiro, Duarte, Filipe, & Torres de
Oliveira, 2020)
.
Authentic leaders help promote a work environment wherein creativity is fos-
tered and encouraged by involving specific actions guided by beliefs, values, and
words, thereby contributing to a truthful and open relationship with their fol-
lowers
(Ilies, Morgeson, & Nahrgang, 2005;
Rego, Vitória, Magalhães, Ribeiro, &
Cunha, 2013)
. It has been suggested that authentic leaders positively influence
employees’ creativity
(Avolio et al., 2004;
Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, &
Walumbwa, 2005;
Rego, Sousa, Marques, & e Cunha, 2012,
2014;
Rashid, Islam,
Asif & Ahmer, 2019)
. When close relationships between authentic leaders and
employees are established then employees feel free to try new ideas. Research
also shows that increasing employees’ perceiving psychological safety and in-
herent motivation provides a fearless climate of working with new ideas
(Cerne,
Jaklic, & Škerlavaj, 2013;
Rego et al., 2012,
2014)
.
Further,
Cottrill, Lopez and Hoffman (2014)
suggested that developing self-
awareness, transparency, ethics, and processing multiple perspectives as authen-
tic leadership skills, will benefit the organizations by enhancing employee inclu-
sion, commitment, self-esteem and organizational functioning.
3. Research Methodology
3.1. Research Objectives
The objectives of the study are
Objective 1: To depict Nadella’s leadership journey at Microsoft through four
dimensions of authentic leadership.
Objective 2: To examine the public sentiments of tweets regarding #Sat-
yaNadella in NVivo.
3.2. Data Collection
The researcher searched in the Google Scholar, Microsoft Academia, Harvard
Business Review (HBR), newspapers, and websites. The search words like “au-
thentic leadership”, “Microsoft”, “creative leadership”, “innovation” and “Satya
Nadella” were used to explore the literature. Initially 60 articles emerged which
were further refined by following a trial search for each database by going
through the abstract and full paper after that. A total of 29 research articles are
obtained after removing duplicate and irrelevant articles. For Word Query analysis
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
99
Open Journal of Leadership
using Nvivo, only seven interviews of Nadella are obtained from
https://www.businessinsider.in/
(2014),
https://www.youtube.com
(2015),
https://www.theverge.com
(2018),
https://www.hbr.org
(2017),
https://www.wsj.com
(2019),
https://www.youtube.com
(2019) and
https://www.cncb.com
(2020) to obtain word query analysis, treemap, cluster
analysis. The interviews are available online either as audio or video which were
transcribed into written form as a word document by researchers one by one.
The researcher restricted searches for interviews for leadership of Nadella at Mi-
crosoft from 2014 until April 2020 for NVivo software analysis. The interviews
are available online free of cost.
For sentiment analysis, #SatyaNadella tweets data is obtained using NCapture
from Tweeter to analyze the public opinion towards Nadella on 3
rd
July 2020 in
NVivo qualitative software. The tweets and retweets captured were 1531, but af-
ter removing irrelevant tweets from either unauthorized tweeter accounts or ir-
relevant tweets, the total count of tweets obtained was 1084. NVivo analytics
aligned the characteristics and strategies of Nadella to the theory of authentic lead-
ership to examine the relationship between the two using the 29 selected papers.
3.3. Data Analysis Procedure and Techniques
The interviews are available online either as audio or video which were tran-
scribed into written form as a word document by researchers one by one. These
seven interviews of Nadella from 2014-2020 were imported in QSR NVivo soft-
ware. The nodes were classified as the four components of Authentic leadership
theory mentioned above and references from each interview were taken into ac-
count to analyze the relationship between them. The word query tool was per-
formed to analyzed using NVivo Qualitative analysis tool using the filter of a
minimum of three words and stemmed approach (generalized) to obtain word
cloud (
Figure 1
), treemap (
Figure 2
) and Cluster analysis (
Figure 3
).
To explore the personality of Nadella, tweets of #SatyaNadella were extracted
using NCapture on July 3, 2020 to find the general popularity of his personality.
These tweets were analyzed using “Autocode” approach in NVivo tool using the
option “to identify sentiment” based on each and every sentence mentioned in
the tweets and retweets. The sentiment analysis represented the positive, nega-
tive, neutral and mixed sentiments towards Nadella (
Figure 4
), the tweets cap-
tured across the globe (
Figure 5
) and the representation of tweets collected net-
work as Sociogram.
4. Analysis and Discussion
4.1. Qualitative Analysis
4.1.1. Word Query of Nadella’s Interview Performed in NVivo Software
The seven interviews of Nadella from 2014-2020 were analyzed in NVivo using
word frequency query tool with the filter of a minimum of three words and
stemmed approach (generalized) to obtain word query analysis (
Figure 1
), tree
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
100
Open Journal of Leadership
map (
Figure 2
) and Cluster analysis (
Figure 3
).
Figure 1
shows Nadella’s con-
cern about technology bound Microsoft. The relevant words were found to be
“Satya”, “Nadella”, “Microsoft”, “technology”, “leadership”, “innovation”, “em-
ployees” and “culture”. The greater the size of the word appears, the larger is the
frequency of the word in word query analysis. It is interpreted from
Figure 1
that Nadella focuses on the thinking part of how to inculcate change in his or-
ganization by innovating. To do so, he needed to change the leadership style and
culture of Microsoft
(Smale, 2019)
. This word query analysis displays Nadella’s
personality and establishes the relevancy of the interviews selected depicting
Nadella.
Figure 2
shows the TreeMap obtained from NVivo Analytical tool performed
on interviews of Nadella depicting the three broad themes as “microsoft”,
“think” and “thing”. It represents that Nadella mostly speaks about Microsoft
and thinks about it. The other relevant words depicting his focus are “technol-
ogy”, “create”, “product”, “people”, “learning”, “business”, “satya”, “nadella”,
“ceo” and “microsoft”. The focus of Nadella is primarily on the need to create
technology or products by developing a learning approach among people (em-
ployees in general) for a business. He motivates his employees to innovate and
create new technology by continuous learning is depicted from treemap. His
rank was 40 in the list of most powerful people 2018 by Forbes.
Figure 3
depicts the cluster analysis performed in NVivo Analytical tool using
interviews of Nadella. The cluster analysis groups the words of one theme in one
colour and other words of different themes into different colors. Here, the dark
coloured theme is focusing on industry which is built on technology and culture.
The change brought by Nadella in culture by focusing on building technology
(Cloud-enabled AI) accelerated the revenues and transformed Microsoft (
Table
1
).
Figure 1.
Word query analysis. (Exported from QRS
NVivo Qualitative Software on January 2, 2021).
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
101
Open Journal of Leadership
Figure 2.
Tree map. (Exported from QRS NVivo Qualitative Software on January 2, 2021).
Figure 3.
Cluster analysis. (Exported from QRS NVi-
vo Qualitative Software on January 2, 2021).
4.1.2. The Sentiment Analysis of Tweets #SatyaNadella
In pandemic, Microsoft is the first organization to provide 3 months parental
leave to their employees whose schools were shut down due to pandemic situa-
tion in the world in early 2020. Microsoft provided a free of cost interface for
promoting team work by developing “Microsoft Teams”, which highlight its vi-
sion of embracing team work culture. Nadella is one of the leaders to help his
employees in every possible circumstance observed from his initiatives. More-
over, over the past six years, Nadella has shown his leadership skills to embrace
diverse culture and enhance Microsoft’s profitability after joining as CEO in
2014. Because of his constant efforts to encirclement diversity, he has topped the
list of “Best CEOs for Diversity 2020” voted by employees of color and indige-
nous individuals, reported by Comparably.
During this pandemic where all the organizations face critic’s lens, the image
of Nadella emerged to be positive by performing sentiment analysis using tweeter
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
102
Open Journal of Leadership
data (tweets obtained on June 3 2020 for #SatyaNadella). The majority of the
tweets are neutral and positive out of total 1084 tweets and retweets (Appendix).
Figure 6
shows that the neutral and positive tweets account for 78% of the
tweets, and the mixed and negatives tweets account for a mere 11% and 12% re-
spectively.
The tweets obtained were from across the globe but more than 90% were ob-
tained from North America as shown in Map in
Figure 4
.
The Sociogram Twitter in
Figure 5
depicts the network of tweets and retweets
obtained using the NVivo analytical tool. The sociogram appears to be like a ball
which specifies that the retweets on the tweets of #SatyaNadella were immensely
spread like a web across the globe. Hence, the importance of examining Nadella’s
leadership traits in one of the most successful IT giants “Microsoft” is of immense
importance. The leaders can learn a lot from Nadella’s journey and personality as
he is the first in the “Best CEOs for Diversity 2020”
(Comparably, 2020)
.
Figure 4.
World Map of tweets #SatyaNadella. (Exported from QRS NVivo Qualit-
ative Software on January 2, 2021).
Figure 5.
Sociogram Twitter of tweets #SatyaNadella. (Exported
from QRS NVivo Qualitative Software on January 2 2021).
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
103
Open Journal of Leadership
Figure 6.
Sentiment analysis of Tweets #SatyaNadella. (Exported from
QRS NVivo Qualitative Software on January 2, 2021).
4.2. Nadella’s Journey and Leadership
Nadella began his journey in Microsoft in 1992 as an engineer. He has evolved
into a more productive and farsighted individual at Microsoft which is one rea-
son behind his successful leadership style, he mentioned during his interview
with BBC. He explores the organization by examining its existing culture, then
introducing new values, norms, shared assumptions and vision for smooth
adopting a new culture he wants to incorporate. The roles performed by Nadella
are, 1) to recognize the need to revitalization, 2) creating new vision, 3) institu-
tionalizing change. Studies provide evidence for the importance of the positive
effect of authentic leadership style on creativity
(Rego et al., 2012,
Rego et al.,
2014)
.
Walumbwa et al. (2008)
classified authentic leadership into four compo-
nents, “1) Self-awareness, 2) Relational transparency, 3) Internalized moral per-
spective and 4) Balanced processing.” Comparing these characteristics with
those of Nadella’s, it is evident that the leadership style adopted by him involved
many hurdles and vilipend comments from critics. Nadella joined and an-
nounced himself as an ordinary individual who focuses more on collaboration,
learning, stimulate intellectuality and creativity. His approach for expected cul-
ture was results-driven instead of aggressiveness and competitive culture during
Ballmer’s days. Hence, Microsoft was on acceleration after Nadella joined as
CEO. He had fulfilled the four characteristics of authentic leadership explained
in
Table 3
.
After joining Microsoft in 2014, Nadella changed the leadership and culture
by emphasizing embracing individual empowerment, positivity, empathy and
growth of employees, according to article on Nadella’s Leadership style in Ber-
rett Koehler Publishers (2019). Let’s bridge the gap between Nadella’s initiative
as CEOs and authentic leadership traits (
Table 3
). Firstly, he is an empathetic
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
104
Open Journal of Leadership
Table 3.
Relationship between nadella’s leadership style and authentic leadership.
Sr No Leader’s skills Definition
Nadella’s ideologies depicting leader’s skills (Example)
1
Self-Awareness
Authentic leaders exhibit the
awareness their strength,
weakness; express how others see
them and how he impacts others.
Leaders having a high level of
self-awareness can influence their
followers’ choice of behaviour,
thinking, and motivate them to
encourage trust for building
positive interpersonal
relationships among their
followers, which eventually
promotes creativity.
Nadella gained the top spot in “Best CEO for diversity 2020” in Comparably Awards,
where employees of color voted i.e., employees think Nadella to be an inclusive leader
and who give equal opportunity to all irrespective of any color. He endeavoured
diversity and said diversity leads to new creative innovative ideas. Nadella’s strength
lies in influencing followers to develop new ideas by providing brainstorming
sessions, giving equal opportunity to all, and his constant encouragement to work in
teams. He encourages employees to be innovative and creative by providing his
support, thus developing an environment of trust among employees. Also, followers
tend to feel good when he is around, depicting his positive interpersonal relationships.
He believes in Teamwork and thus introduced new features in Microsoft Teams i.e.,
“Together Mode” for encouraging teamwork for everyone. Through Nadella’s
declaration of doing meaningful work, he positively influences his employees to
develop innovative ideas to endeavour sustainability. His global skill initiative to help
others (not only his employees) is driven by his empathetic characteristics, which are
highly appreciated by individuals globally, improving Nadella and Microsoft’s overall
impression. He communicated 3R to his followers that can help them to overcome
challenges faced
• Reacting, • Responding • Reimagining
2
Relational
transparency
Authentic Leaders display
authentic selves because they
openly share information,
feelings, emotions, and thoughts
with their followers. It provides
an opportunity for their
followers to express their
opinions, ideas, and challenges.
Authentic Leaders create an
environment of honesty,
openness, and trust for
promoting creativity among their
followers and encourage them to
generate new ideas.
Nadella openly communicated his expectation to his employees in three simple
approach
• Create clarity
• Strike energy
• Ability to achieve success
He hosts open sessions like “ask me anything” to encourage the forthcoming
employees with ideas and develop a relationship of accessible information and trust
He supports his followers, develops trust through his leadership style, and encourages
teamwork among his employees. He gave way to brainstorming sessions and a new
open work environment to enhance creativity. He collaborated with competitors to
embrace innovation and creativity. He encourages employees to examine market
critically and come up with innovative ideas
He is rated highest in interpersonal skills by his employees as they refer to him as a
happening person and tagged him as most favorite individual. He allowed individual
employees to create innovative ideas and support employees in creative yet risky
projects. He encourages challenge taking behavior of employees.
3
Internalized
moral
perspective
Authentic leaders strongly
express their consistent moral
values and standards while
comparing it to social,
organizational, and team
pressures. They also reveal how
much their behaviours and
decisions are aligned with
internalized values. They
promote integrity and honesty,
and discourage unethical
behaviours that lead to positive
climate and trust and, thereby,
creativity.
Nadella is rated as “Best CEO for Diversity 2020” depicting his high moral and ethical
values regarding diversity and inclusivity. His values and fair decisions have
imprinted him as best inclusive leader by the employees of color. He prefers diversity
for enhancing creativity as he stated that Diversity inclusion is “A pillar for success.”
He addressed the social injustice in America by clearly communicating his
commitment, through mail to all his employees, to take actions to control racial
injustice, inequity, and unambiguously believe that “Black lives matter.” He updated
Microsoft policies and taking initiatives to make Black lives better by providing
technological support to individuals of color. Nadella’s behaviour is consistent with
his moral value of embracing inclusive diversity to enhance creativity
He believes in happier customers, employees and partners by focusing on “inclusivity,
trust & sustainability.”
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
105
Open Journal of Leadership
4
Balanced
processing
Authentic leaders analyze the
entire information objectively
before making a decision,
improving fairness in
decision-making to promote
positive interpersonal
relationships and trust, which
eventually develops an emotional
attachment among followers
towards their organizations and
enhances creativity.
Collaborating with rival firms and taking risks to encourage team work and grow with
them. The collaboration brings trust in leader’s role for enhancing creativity. Nadella’s
his initiative to bring education back on track by working with a partner is highly
appreciated by his followers. His three meeting rules i.e., •listen more • talk less • be
decisive, became very popular. He intends to combine the fragments of Microsoft into
one.
After examining the environment, Nadella stated that the world is heading towards
transforming from the traditional work culture into new a hybrid work system and
culture. He calls it the new regular work, which focuses on results rather than the
number of hours logged in. This decision has encouraged employees to be more
productive and developed a sense of attachment for Nadella in pandemics.
and inclusive leader who gives importance to diversity to generate new innova-
tive ideas and motivate employees to develop new ideas by organizing brain-
storming sessions. His influence on others and his high level of self-awareness
undoubtedly makes him the “Best CEOs for Diversity 2020” (reported by Com-
parably) depicting his strength. Secondly, he was considered the most happening
person and rated highest in his interpersonal skills by his fellow mates in Mi-
crosoft over the last five years showing his strong interpersonal skills. Also, he
provided an opportunity to be heard with the help of strong communication
channel conducting “ask me anything sessions” depicting his relational trans-
parency characteristics. Thirdly, his verge of building a culture of trust around
the concept of equitable growth with “inclusivity, trust and sustainability” shows
his strong internalized moral perspective. Lastly, the balanced approach of
Nadella is depicted by his supportive style and clear vision of being a partner led
company, collaborating with rival firms to generate innovative ideas and posi-
tively communicating a sense of new hybrid system of work for transforming
world. He empowered his employees to examine the market critically and de-
velop innovative ideas and hence increase creativity. Therefore, Nadella is an
authentic leader who has changed the Microsoft’s phase from status quo to ac-
celerated rate and fulfils the four component of Authentic Leadership theory
(Walumbwa et al., 2008)
.
The word query tool (word query, treemap and cluster analysis) depicts Nadella’s
personality as Microsoft’s CEO and sentiment analysis of #SatyaNadella reports
a majorly positive opinion of the tweets. The traits of Nadella are found to be
linked with four components of authentic leadership. The challenges and ap-
proaches adopted by Nadella in Microsoft lays down benchmarks for other po-
tential leaders present and to come in the future.
5. Implications
As a leader, Nadella promoted employee innovation and creativity that enhanced
Microsoft’s performance. It has been suggested that creativity increases when
fair decision making and analysing the character of leader increases
(Oke et al.,
2009)
. Nadella’s approach of “Never Say NO” and supportive style for empow-
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
106
Open Journal of Leadership
erment has increased Microsoft’s ranking in terms of Revenue and Total Assets
(
Table 1
). This style incidents that an integrated culture should be provided that
can help followers to explain their own ideas and decisions that may develop
creativity. This study suggests that authentic leadership style is very conducive to
the creation of a good team atmosphere of psychological safety and trust which
in turn facilitates employee willingness and creativity. It is also suggested that a
leader promote an atmosphere of respect, admiration, participation, support,
and involvement for his/her employees from diverse backgrounds to enhance
the commitment and creativity. Nadella embraces diversity culture by putting
the hands up for the campaign “Black Lives Matter” that has acknowledged him
as the “Best CEOs for Diversity 2020” reported by
Comparably (2020)
. So, the
above-mentioned dimensions provide a base to Nadella’s visionary leadership,
making it possible for Microsoft to become the world’s fourth most valuable
company globally
(Fox, 2019)
. The unique vision and farsightedness of Nadella,
being an authentic leader and the journey of transformation of Microsoft has
provided crucial lessons that can be learned by fellow IT giants such as Face-
book, Google and Apple.
The findings of the analysis indicate some practical contributiosn from inte-
grated Nadella-authentic leadership style that has developed a culture of innova-
tion and creativity. First, leaders should give followers the choice of thinking and
behaviour. Second, they should motivate and encourage trust for building posi-
tive interpersonal relationship that can promote creativity. Third, freedom and
opportunity should be provided to followers to express their opinion and ideas.
Fourth, a leader should promote integrity, honesty and discourage unethical be-
haviours that lead to positive climate and trust and therefore creativity. Fifth,
develop an emotional attachment among followers towards their organisation.
Sixth, he should focus on collaboration, learning, empowerment, positivity, em-
pathy and growth of employees. Lastly, develop opportunity of voice to be heard
and a good communication channel should be integrated to develop a culture of
trust that can promote creativity. Hence, these suggestions can help leaders to
polish and develop their leadership skills and organisation performance. These
suggestions are applicable not only to IT giants but also to any other business in
21
st
century.
6. Conclusion
This study makes significant contributions by displaying how Nadella skills con-
tribute to employee innovation through creativity. This study highlights rela-
tionship between Nadella’s skills and Authentic Leadership dimensions of self-
awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and an internalized
moral perspective. These dimensions are quite important as they encourage em-
ployees’ positive attitudes and behaviours (i.e., affective commitment and crea-
tivity). In this study we have tried to analyze these dimensions with Nadella’s vi-
sionary leadership of authenticity. Identification of sentiments associated with
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
107
Open Journal of Leadership
#SatyaNadella is obtained using NCapture from Twiter. The tweets mainly were
neutral and positive. The study also signifies that the traits of Nadella are linked
with authentic leadership style with the help of his interviews and decisions
taken by Nadella since 2014 (
Table 3
). The study further discusses the implica-
tions for the fellow competitor’s IT giants such as Apple, Facebook and Google
to learn lessons from the “Transformation of Microsoft” for smooth cultural change
and accelerating profits over the years
(Sharma, 2020)
.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this pa-
per.
References
Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Walumbwa, F., Luthans, F., & May, D. R. (2004). Unlocking
the Mask: A Look at the Process by Which Authentic Leaders Impact Follower Atti-
tudes and Behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 801-823.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2004.09.003
Azanza, G., Gorgievski, M. J., Moriano, J. A., & Molero, F. (2018). Influencing Salespeo-
ple’s Work Outcomes through Authentic Leadership. Leadership & Organization De-
velopment Journal, 39, 926-944.
https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-05-2017-0113
Cerne, M., Jaklic, M., Škerlavaj, M. (2013). Authentic Leadership, Creativity, and Innova-
tion: A Multilevel Perspective. Leadership, 9, 63-85.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715012455130
Chaudhary, R., & Panda, C. (2018). Authentic Leadership and Creativity. International
Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 67, 2071-2088.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-02-2018-0082
Comparably (2020). Best CEOs for Diversity 2020.
https://www.comparably.com/news/best-companies-for-diversity-2020
Cottrill, K., Lopez, P. D., & Hoffman, C. C. (2014). How Authentic Leadership and Inclu-
sion Benefit Organizations. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal,
33, 275-292.
https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-05-2012-0041
Forbes, Fortune 500 (2019).
https://fortune.com/fortune500/2019
Fox, M. (2019). Examining the Leadership Style of Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella.
https://ideas.bkconnection.com/examining-the-leadership-style-of-microsoft-ceo-satya
-nadella
Gardner, W. L., & Carlson, J. D. (2015). Authentic Leadership. International Encyclope-
dia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 27, 245-250.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.22001-1
Gardner, W. L., Avolio, B. J., Luthans, F., May, D. R., & Walumbwa, F. (2005). Can You
See the Real Me? A Self-Based Model of Authentic Leader and Follower Development.
Leadership Quarterly, 16, 343-372.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.03.003
Gardner, W. L., Cogliser, C. C., Davis, K. M., & Dickens, M. P. (2011). Authentic Leader-
ship: A Review of the Literature and Research Agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 22,
1120-1145.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.09.007
Hlongwane, V., & Olivier, B. (2017). Authentic Leadership Influences on Organizational
Commitment in a South African State Hospital. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 27,
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
108
Open Journal of Leadership
400-404.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2017.1375204
Ilies, R., Morgeson, F. P., & Nahrgang, J. D. (2005). Authentic Leadership and Eudae-
monic Well-Being: Understanding Leader-Follower Outcomes. The Leadership Quar-
terly, 16, 373-394.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.03.002
Imam, H., Naqvi, M. B., Naqvi, S. A., & Chambel, M. J. (2020). Authentic Leadership:
Unleashing Employee Creativity through Empowerment and Commitment to the Su-
pervisor. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 41, 847-864.
https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-05-2019-0203
Miao, C., Humphrey, R. H., & Qian, S. (2018). Emotional Intelligence and Authentic
Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39,
679-690.
https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-02-2018-0066
Oke, A., Munshi, N., & Walumbwa, F. O. (2009). The Influence of Leadership on Innova-
tion Processes and Activities. Organizational Dynamics, 38, 64-72.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2008.10.005
Rashid, M. A., Islam, T., Asif, R., & Ahmer, Z. (2019). Impact of Authentic Leadership on
Employees Creativity and Innovation: Mediating Role of Psychological Capital. Journal
of the Research Society of Pakistan, 56, 61.
Rego, A., Sousa, F., Marques, C., & e Cunha, M. P. (2012). Authentic Leadership Pro-
moting Employees’ Psychological Capital and Creativity. Journal of Business Research,
65, 429-437.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.10.003
Rego, A., Sousa, F., Marques, C., & e Cunha, M. P. (2014). Hope and Positive Affect Me-
diating the Authentic Leadership and Creativity Relationship. Journal of Business Re-
search, 67, 200-210.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.10.003
Rego, A., Vitória, A., Magalhães, A., Ribeiro, N., & e Cunha, M. P. (2013). Are Authentic
Leaders Associated with More Virtuous, Committed and Potent Teams? The Leader-
ship Quarterly, 24, 61-79.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.08.002
Ribeiro, N., Duarte, A. P., & Filipe, R. (2018a). How Authentic Leadership Promotes In-
dividual Performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Man-
agement, 67, 1585-1607.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-11-2017-0318
Ribeiro, N., Duarte, A. P., Filipe, R., & Torres de Oliveira, R. (2020). How Authentic
Leadership Promotes Individual Creativity: The Mediating Role of Affective Commit-
ment. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 27, 189-202.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051819842796
Ribeiro, N., Gomes, D., & Kurian, S. (2018b). Authentic Leadership and Performance:
The Mediating Role of Employees’ Affective Commitment. Social Responsibility Jour-
nal, 14, 213-225.
https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-06-2017-0111
Rukh, L., Shahrukh, H. M., & Iqbal, K. Z. (2018). Effect of Authentic Leadership on Or-
ganization Commitment: Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction. Journal of Entrepreneur-
ship & Organization Management, 7, 247-248.
Semedo, A. S., Coelho, A., & Ribeiro, N. (2017). Authentic Leadership and Creativity: The
Mediating Role of Happiness. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 25, 395-
412.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2016-0994
Sharma, P. (2020). The Transformation of Microsoft. Fortune India.
https://www.fortuneindia.com/opinion/the-transformation-of-microsoft/104658
Smale, B. (2019). London Business School Review, Issue 1.
Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008).
Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure? Jour-
nal of Management, 34, 89.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913
D. Prakash et al.
DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2021.102007
109
Open Journal of Leadership
Walumbwa, F. O., Luthans, F., Avey, J. B., & Oke, A. (2011). Authentically Leading
Groups: The Mediating Role of Collective Psychological Capital and Trust. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 32, 4-24.
https://doi.org/10.1002/job.653
Websites
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/06/23/addressing-racial-injustice/
https://news.microsoft.com/2020/06/30/microsoft-to-help-25-million-people-worldwide-
acquire-new-digital-skills-needed-for-the-covid-19-economy/
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/presenting-satya-nadella-employed-
a-growth-mindset-to-overhaul-microsofts-cutthroat-culture-and-turn-it-into-a-trillion
-dollar-company-heres-how-he-did-it/articleshow/74528714.cms
https://www.cloudwars.co/microsoft/microsoft-hypergrowth-beyond-azure-q4-2020-earn
ings-call/
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/17/how-microsoft-has-evolved-under-satya-nadella.html
https://www.comparably.com/news/best-companies-for-diversity-2020/
https://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/satya-nadella-s-5-biggest-statements-at-m
icrosoft-inspire-2020
https://www.edition.cnn.com/2020/04/09/tech/microsoft-12-weeks-parental-leave/index.
html
https://www.forbes.com/powerful-people/list/#tab:overall
https://www.forbes.com/powerful-people/list/#tab:youngest
https://www.fortune.com/fortune500/2019/microsoft/
https://www.fortuneindia.com/opinion/the-transformation-of-microsoft/104658
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-3-characteristics-all-great-leaders-share-accordi
ng-to-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella.html
https://www.london.edu/lbsr/changemakers-satya-nadella
https://www.microsoft.com
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2016/11/02/introducing-microsoft
-teams-the-chat-based-workspace-in-office-365/
https://news.microsoft.com/2018/03/29/satya-nadella-email-to-employees-embracing-our
-future-intelligent-cloud-and-intelligent-edge
https://news.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-forecasts-hybrid-new-normal-of-work-in-in
dia/
https://news.microsoft.com/skills/
https://www.qz.com/work/1539071/how-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-rebuilt-the-compan
y-culture/
https://www.reuters.com
https://www.technologyrecord.com/magazine/the-record/summer-2020
