PSDA-2

REVIEW OF COMPANY PRACTICES OF IT COMPANIES w.r.t

LEADERSHIP

MICROSOFT

5 Leadership Qualities of Satya Nadella that changed Microsoft’s

Fortunes
“Believe me, my journey has not been a simple journey of progress. There have been many
ups and downs, and it is the choices that I made at each of those times that have helped shape
what I have achieved.” – Satya Nadella – Microsoft CEO

The above quote from Mr. Nadella is a clear proof that how he has earned his place as the top
brass at Microsoft and his success is not a fluke.

1. An Avid Reader

One of the famous quotes of Harry S. Truman, former US president is, “Not all readers are
leaders but all leaders are readers.” One of the greatest qualities of a leader is his habit of
learning. And a person learns either from his experiences or through others. Reading books
can make you a better leader as Nadella’s huge success as a visionary leader is a prime
example.

Satya Nadella is an avid reader and his office looks like a small bookshop consisting of
dozens of books.

In his own words, “I read a few pages here and a few pages there. There are a few books, of
course, that you read end-to-end. But without books, I can’t live.” Just after becoming the
CEO of Microsoft, Nadella asked company’s top executives to read Marshall Rosenberg’s
book Nonviolent Communication that was based on emphatic collaboration.

2. Look Beyond the Horizon

Satya Nadella was the head of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group. He had a vision and
belief that cloud computing was going to be a big thing in the future. That’s why Microsoft
invested billions in setting up data centres around the world to support its cloud-ready
products.

Another great step was transforming Microsoft’s original software business from permanent
licenses to, where revenue is generated just once, to subscriptions, where revenue is
recurring.

While Microsoft’s game console X-Box was a big thing before Nadella came onboard, he
made sure that it continues to rival Nintendo and Sony PlayStation and remained a competitor
rather than bowing down to those giants in the business.

3. Making the Right Moves at the Right Time

Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition is the largest in Microsoft’s history and a great buy so the
least. Industry pundits termed it as a masterstroke from Nadella as LinkedIn is now the
world’s largest professional networking service.

Many other companies like Google were also thinking about making the acquisition or
merger but Microsoft clinched the deal in front of their eyes.

Microsoft benefited greatly from the merger as its shares rose in the start of 2017 and showed
considerable gains in cloud computing and other areas of focus too as it absorbed the
LinkedIn once the acquisition was finalized on December 8, 2016. With more than 400
million LinkedIn subscribers, Microsoft got a treasure trove of data that they can use for a
variety of purpose.  

4. Make Every Second Count

Nadella is deeply protective of his time and as he knows the value of it very well. The 30
minutes he spends on a treadmill is the only time he is alone but he uses it too productively
thinking about what to do next.
Rest of the day he is all busy with all sorts of engagement. It can include meeting with some
government official, preparing a keynote speech, at an educational event with children or
meeting with Microsoft’s executives at the Redmond, WA headquarters of Microsoft.

Controlling a company that has a presence in 192 countries around the world is no mean
achievement. He makes long trips to far-reaching destinations just to assess what the
requirements of his customers as he terms very important.

His visit to a solar-powered internet Café in Kenya was a testament to this fact as went there
to understand the how his customers use tech so he can serve them better in the future. He
termed that journey worth visiting and not a waste of time.

5. Nurturing a Strong Company Culture 

In his book, Hit Refresh, Nadella has dedicated a complete chapter about the culture he
inherited from Mr Steve Ballmer, the person he replaced as the CEO of Microsoft in February
2014 and mold it according to his preferences. He changed the rigid culture to a growth mind
set in three distinct ways.

He made sure there is a curiosity factor among all the employees to meet customer’s
demands. Secondly, Nadella infused a culture of seeking diversity and inclusion so that
employees continue to improve and become open to learning about own biases and changing
their behaviours.

The third point is about innovation and healthy competition among the employees. Nadella
has made sure that by incorporating these 3 qualities in Microsoft’s employees, he has set up
a culture that will grow on them.

Another key is individual empowerment that can wonders for a company and one can already
sense that Microsoft is heading in the right direction.

The 3 Essentials Every Great Leader Must Have, According to

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
1. Great leaders create clarity.

When the path is well marked, you don't need a leader. You can just trudge along putting one
foot in front of the other. It's when the environment gets chaotic and the road ahead isn't clear
that leaders become essential. Which is why the way to discern and communicate a way out
of the chaos is the first essential trait of great leaders?

"In an ambiguous situation, where there cannot be complete information, that is when
leadership will matter," Nadella explained. "Your ability to come into an uncertain time and
an uncertain future and bring about clarity is key. 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." 

2. Great leaders create energy.

OK, you now know where you're going, thanks to the vision on your leader, but a road map is
no good if you don't also have the energy to actually walk that difficult path. That's why
companies need leaders who create not just clarity but also energy.

"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.' That's not creating energy," Nadella notes. "There is no simple thing
that is always under your control, so the idea is that you have got to create energy all around
you." That requires learning the skills to be an effective evangelist and inspire followers all
around you.

3. Great leaders create success ... no matter the circumstances.

Leadership would be easy if the world didn't put roadblocks in your path -- if that hurricane
didn't slow down your shipment, if your competitor didn't launch its product a month early, if
those regulations didn't change. But here in the real world, leaders don't control many of the
factors that influence their success. They need to get things done anyway.

Nadella calls this creating success in an "over constrained space," and insists leaders "can't
say, 'You know what, I'm just waiting for you to remove all the constraints, and I'll be
perfect.'" News flash: There will always be constraints. Great leaders don't hope for the stars
to align. Instead, they find a way to work with the reality the world serves up to them -- no
excuses, no complaining, just a single-minded determination to be successful.

WIPRO

Azim Premji, the richest tech-billionaire in India, is credited for diversifying Wipro, which
was originally a manufacturer of vegetable and refined oils in Amalner, district Jalgaon in
Maharashtra. The 69 year old business tycoon took charge at a young age of 21 and since
then has been imparting many of the lessons he learnt during his career with India’s youth. It
is now one of India’s top IT companies and a world-class player at the global level.

If there’s one mantra for success given by Mr. Premji’s, it’s: “keep striving for excellence.”
And he has been very true to his own belief.

1. Be far-sighted

The 69 year old philanthropist believes change is inevitable. And so he advises everyone to
develop their own early warning system, which sets the alarm and prepares one for the
changes ahead. He believes ‘being forewarned is being forearmed’ even when things are
going right.

2. Know your strength

While it is important to know one’s weaknesses, it is equally important to know one’s

strengths as well. Azim Premji has followed this throughout his life and turned what was then
a $2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company into the $ 7 billion company, with a presence
in 60 countries. At an event organized by AIMA and Bombay Management Association, he
had said that it important to cherish the good in us because it is only our strengths that helps
us correct our weaknesses.

3. Stick to your values

He believes that one’s value system forms the core of the business. Premji has time and again
emphasized on the need for sticking to values because he firmly believes that success in
business eventually but inevitably follows. He has said that once you stand by what you
believe and don’t compromise with it under any circumstances; he becomes resilient to stand
up to crisis, a quality much adored in entrepreneurs!

4. Stay grounded

Every entrepreneur can become successful. But what is important is to not let success go to
your head. Or so says Premji. He has always advised young entrepreneurs to remain down to
earth because the moment one lets success get into the head, he is already on his way to
failure. He has also stressed on the fact that failure is as much a natural phenomenon as
success is. So, when you encounter failure, always learn your lessons and move on!

5. Have faith

Azim Premji has always believed that it is important to have faith in one’s own ideas,
even when everyone around tells you it is impossible. It is this faith that has helped him
diversify.

This was the first thought that came to Azim Premji when over four decades ago, he stepped
into the Wipro factory as Amalner. He was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford
University Engineering School at California. Many people advised him to take up a nice,
cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business but he
decided to stay and turned it into a multi-billion dollar business. Essentially, leadership
begins from within.

7. Learn to work in teams

Azim Premji believes that the challenges ahead are so complex that no individual will be able
to face them alone. While most of our education is focused in individual strength, teaming
with others is equally important. You cannot fire a missile from a canoe. Unless you build a
strong network of people with complementary skills, you will be restricted by your own
limitations. Globalization has brought people of different origins, different upbringing and
different cultures together. Ability to become an integral part of a cross-cultural team will be
a must for your success.

8. Trust your gut instincts

Azim Premji does what he deems right and mostly, it so turns out that it is the ‘right’ thing to
do. He once said, “It is important to realize that our intuition is a very important part of
decision making. Many things are recorded by our subconscious. Use both sides of the brain.
Even that is not enough. Some decisions need the use of the heart as well. When you use your
mind and heart together, you may get a completely new and creative answer.”

9. Dealing with stress

Azim Premji feels that the stress that a young person faces today while beginning his or her
career is the same as the last generation faced at the time of retirement. These are times when
our jobs have become more complex even though some new technology is being rolled out
almost every day. It’s only natural to get stressed under such circumstances. You must
develop your own mechanism for dealing with stress. Some tackle it by going for a daily jog,
some find relief in listening to good music and so on and so forth. The important thing to do
is to develop your own stress-busting mechanism. You will need lots of energy to deal with
the challenges. Unless you take care of yourself there is no way you can take care of others.

10. Never lose your zest and curiosity

Success eludes those who rest in the middle of a run. You got recharge your batteries, agreed.
But, don’t time it right in the middle of a competition that’s hooting up. Markets wait for
none, so be on your toes. Resting time is when the market slips into slumber. Premji said,
“Remaining on top of what you need to know will become one of the greatest challenges for
you. The natural zest and curiosity for learning is one of the greatest drivers for keeping
updated on knowledge. A child’s curiosity is insatiable because every new object is a thing of
wonder and mystery. The same zest is needed to keep learning new things. I personally spend
at least 10 hours every week on reading. If I do not do that, I will find myself quickly
outdated.”
Wipro and make it an IT giant, not just in the country but across the globe.

Azim Prem Ji leadership style

Wipro Technologies, is one of the largest software companies in India and Azim Hashim Premji chairman of
Wipro limited ranks among the Greatest entrepreneur of all times in the list compiled by leading business
magazine. He is a well-known Indian business leader whose values and ethics are renowned amongst business
circles.

Azim prem ji was the person who made Wipro shift from soap to software. He wants to bring company within
100 technology companies in the world. Azim ji Leadership is a paradoxical blend of quiet dynamism with an
understand drive for excellence. Under his leadership WIPRO has not only spread in India but also globally
because of his humility and commitment toward his work.

According to Azim ji successful leaders must be able to articulate clear, stated, committed vision for the
company. Success has to be built on a foundation of value. According to him leaders must have self-confidence
which comes from positive attitude. They need extraordinary physical and someway spiritual energy to remain
on the top of the demand . Leader must keep improving their standards for excellence in quality. They must be
always be on the side of optimism and they should always play to win which gives a new sense of direction and
energy.

Azim ji believe-

"If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small..."
                                                                                                                            - Azim prem ji

                                                                                                                                               

 According to Azim ji there are steps to successful leadership which goes as

below

  Leader must develop powerful personal credibility.

 Great Leaders tell people clearly what they expect from them.

 Great leader are great teachers and coaches.

 Successful leaders need to have energy and be able to energies others.

  Leaders do not always have to be in the limelight.

 Leaders play to win.

 Leaders have the ability to preserve when all odds are against them.

 Leaders surround themselves with people who are on the side of optimism.

ORACLE

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re
nuts.”

– Larry Ellison, CEO

“We should accept each other and celebrate our differences”

-Juan Carlos C., Senior Director

When the objective is to be a global leader, seeking out supporting roles might seem
counterintuitive. But for Oracle it’s business as usual. Innovating to help its customers
achieve stellar performance is more than just a customer-centric paradigm. It’s a fundamental
business model, and it’s the reason Oracle is the world’s largest enterprise software vendor.

Five principles for leadership success

He is passionate about coaching, giving advice, and sharing his experience and knowledge so
other can leverage it. “I have made many mistakes and at times I struggled in my career; in
some cases I learned the hard way. Others can benefit from that,” he says.

Throughout his career journey, JCC offers five principles for successful leading and
managing:

1. Respect others. Model it all the time.

2. Be open to be challenged and encourage other ideas.

3. Trust your staff and be patient.

 4. Support a collaborative environment.

5. Manage the expectations with your manager and your staff—avoid surprises.

Developing Female Leaders

Empowering women to reach their leadership potential is at the heart of the OWL
organisation. Vidya Nagaraj, Vice President of Education Product Management and Services,
is testament to the organisation’s ability to help women grow their careers:

“Thanks to OWL, I’ve built a wonderful network and had the opportunity to learn from so
many inspirational leaders. My OWL experience helped shape the confident leader I am
today, and I’m honoured to help others as the OWL Lead for India.

“I related to the OWL philosophy of creating a community of women who come together to
inspire each other. I believe in the concept of ‘paying it forward’ and it means a lot to me that
I can contribute towards the empowerment of other women.”

Emerging Leaders’ Summit

OWL’s commitment to developing female leaders is now even more tangible with the advent
of the ‘Emerging Leaders’ Summit.’ This global series of events invests in Oracle’s emerging
leaders with skills workshops, innovation sessions and invaluable networking opportunities.
They are connecting future generations of female leaders with the knowledge and resources
that are vital to succeed in the digital age.

Leadership Style

Larry Ellison has led Oracle from start-up to ‘software giant’ with a style that many view
as narcissist.

Larry Ellison’s leadership style can be described as autocratic.

The autocratic leadership style is characterized by individual control over major decisions
with little regard for input from others. Leaders that embrace this style often make decisions
based on their own judgements and rarely consider the input of their followers. Ellison has
been criticized as having a god complex and models himself based on samurai principles

ELLISON’S LEADERSHIP has adopted a command and control approach in leading Oracle.
Every major decision that is made at Oracle is fully centred on him. Although he retired as
CEO, Ellison maintains control of Oracle through his position as Chairman of the company’s
board of directors. This leadership style favour’s the implementation of consistent quality
products. Ellison is certainly a successful and brilliant leader who wants to excel as a
business man. To this end, Ellison is a self-driven autocratic leader who aims to drive his
subordinates to perform optimally and accomplish business tasks with minimal errors.
However, he has been under criticism for spending too much time on leisure activities and
delegating much of the leadership activities to his subordinates.

As an autocratic leader, Ellison’s style can also be considered as authoritarian and dictatorial.
Authoritarian leaders make decisions with little input from others which can be contrasted to
democratic leadership style whereby leaders actively seek for the input of others.
Consequently, authoritative leaders like Ellison have an ominous responsibility as they are
not only expected to make all the major decisions, but to make the right decisions.
Experience demonstrates that authoritative leaders are disliked and are often ousted whenever
they make the wrong decisions. Larry Ellison can also be regarded as a transformational
leader. This is reflected through his innovative approach as well as vision which have enabled
Oracle to veer ahead of its competitors in enterprise business solutions. Oracle’s success is
mainly because Ellison has been able to get people involved in his vision. Oracle is an agile
company that is able to react quickly which is vital in today’s dynamic and fast paced
business environment.
 INFOSYS

"A true leader is one who leads by example and sacrifices more than anyone
else, in his or her pursuit of excellence."

- N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman, Infosys.

"The US. Has discovered India's high-tech industry, and the credit is largely
due to shy, unflappable engineer N.R. Narayana Murthy."

- Business Week, June 14, 1999.

 The term ‘leadership’ is understood, for instance, as a range of skill sets deployed by
its leadership teams rather than as synonymous with any particular leader.

 This organisation Infosys has different leadership style. They do follow autocratic,
democratic, lassie faire, transactional, transformational and visionary leadership
styles.
 The other nine dimensions of leadership that Infosys is interested in: these include
‘strategic leadership’, ‘relationship leadership’, ‘talent leadership’, ‘change
leadership’, ‘operational leadership’, ‘thought leadership’, and ‘entrepreneurial
leadership’.

 There are three main things Murthy looks for in leaders:

1. The ability to lead by example
2. The ability to be a role model on ethics
3. The willingness to learn and change.

As he says, “We believe that leaders should lead from the front. The leaders should not
ask anyone else to do something that they are not willing to do.”
Leadership style analysis

I. Autocratic:

There are certain departments in Infosys wherein they follow autocratic style. This
depends on how the process is to be done. They get instructions from their clients to
work on a project, the leader delegates the work to their team members. The team
members work on the project and complete it as per the instruction from their leader.

II. Democratic:

The IT sector of Infosys has several project, they work on the home page and
navigating page of some web pages like Google, twitter etc. here the leader asks for
the suggestion from the team members, upon debate and discussion and acceptance
from team members and team leader, the project continues.

III. Lassie faire:

The team leaders give their deal line to their subordinates to work on the project. If
suppose the deadline is a month they do not care for the first 20 days, the 21st day
they have a check on the team member, then he cares on the work and at the final
stage the work will be completed.

IV. Transformational:

The team leader delegates work to every individual, a team member may be specialist
in programmer, but he delegate the work to other person in the tea and delegate the
coding work to the specialist in the programmer, there are possibilities where the team
member will learn all sectors of their project, in other part he may get vexed because
he is been allotted with some work which he is not related to.

V. Charismatic:

They could see several managers in their concern, they have a good understanding
about their team members. The leaders know who their members are and what could
they do. In similar way the team members understands their leader because the leader
would have approached them in a friendly manner apart from leader, the leader
 inspires them in every aspect so the team member would do anything for them in
terms of work.

This method of leadership is carried out in every organisation. Even though every
employee has dissatisfaction in their job they do it ether they have to do it or for the
sake to save their leader from problems.

Trait theory

The famous great men hypothesis could be easily understood with the comment that
“the history of the world was the biography of great men (Carlyle 1907, p18)”; it is
this hypothesis that forms the base for the trait theory of leadership. The trait theory
suggests that there are a set of traits of the leaders that are not possessed by non-
leaders which differentiate the leaders from common people. In another word,
according to the trait theory leaders are born and thus cannot be trained.

Big five personality model analysis

The big five model (Goldberg, 1990) is a descriptive trait theory that examines the
personalities of leaders with five dimensions that cover and sum up the most personalities of
a leader, below the leadership of Narayana Murthy will be examined within these five
dimensions.

I. Neuroticism :

Neuroticism or emotional stability examines the leader’s tendency towards emotional

fluctuations such as anxiety, insecurity, depression and hostility (Pierce & Newstrom
2006, p77). Obviously, a leader could not maintain stable in his or her emotion, he or
she would easily become too emotional to make rational and balance decisions and
because of the bad temper, relationship between the leader and his or her subordinates
may be destructed as nobody want to follow a leader that is not predictable.

As in this case, during term when Murthy was in office, he always encouraged
employees from all levels to come to his office to talk with him their experience and
difference opinions about the development of the company. He was opened to
 different ideas and experiences. It’s hard to believe that a man with bad temper could
accept this open door policy for a long time, so Murthy is hard to be disrupted by the
outside mess but in contrast he is able to deal with it in patience.

II. Extraversion :

The dimension extraversion examines the preference of a leader to be sociable; this

personality of a leader is of critical importance as it is a leader’s routine work to deal
with a lot of social activities such as press conference, meeting and charitable
activities.

Murthy is a very sociable person, he was active in raising questions with the social
problems such as poverty and election, and he was also the Prime Minister’s Council
on Trade and Industry (Unknown 2005). Even after he retired as the head of Infosys
in 2006, he appeared in the boardrooms of many multinational companies and
business school to share his experience and philosophy, so he has a high score in term
of extraversion.

III. Openness to experience :

The term openness to experience measure a leader’s ability to break the convention
and stay creative in the management practice, this personality could help a leader
become more sensitive and imaginative to jump out of the old experiences and make
advanced decisions that benefit the company in a long run.

Murthy was very creative and unconventional; he had his vision about the company,
about the IT industry and his country as he was so confident about the Indian IT
service industry back in the 1980s when the market condition was from away from
maturity because of his so advanced prediction about the potential competitiveness of
Indian IT industry.

IV. Agreeableness :

Murthy in his life always has a passion for the low class of the society who suffer
from poverty, unemployment and illness, so he consider making differences to the
widening gap between rich and poor as one of his beliefs of setting the Infosys. On
the other hand, we can see that Murthy is an agreeable person from the fact that he
 concluded a supportive family as his second personal advice to his audience at the
Wharton’s MBA commencement ceremony.

V. Conscientiousness :

The term conscientiousness measures the tendency and preference of the leaders
towards self-discipline, duty and planned actions. This personality of the leader would
help make the leadership practice become more predictable and understandable.

The conscientiousness in Murthy’s word could be understood as that “manage

yourself, especially your feeling in a way that respects the dignity of others and
yourself” and “being transaction oriented”, this is how he managed himself so well
and always got prepared for work and the coming changes. The fact that he sets goal
for himself, for the company and worked hard to achieve these goals shows that he is
a leader with high conscientiousness.

From the good performance in the five dimensions of big five personality model and
considering Murthy’s excellent leadership practices in addiction, it is safe to make such a
conclusion that Murthy’s success as a great leader has close relationship with his good
personalities, he is gentle, nice to people and stay calm in accidents but he is also creative and
acceptable to different ideas, in a word, to some extent, he is a born leader which probably
explains that good leaders are rare.