Satya Nadella's Positive Impact on Microsoft & Its Employees

Microsoft continues to prove its staying power even when beset with challenges within and out of the organization, and after a year at its helm. Satya Nadella has steered the company into new direction and created a positive impact on its employees.

Business Insider reports that Microsoft has given products and source code away for free, moved fast to release a bunch of new products, and began to dismantle a toxic culture that developed over the past decade. Most important, Microsoft has accepted the reality that Windows no longer rules the world. Read more at:

Some of the positive changes in Microsoft happening under Nadella's leadership go back though to the time of Steve Balmer, the company's previous CEO, one analysis says. Open sourcing projects is changing attitudes inside Microsoft, with developers educating each other about the importance of building a community around their product and changing their mindset from owning projects to shepherding them. Likewise the Internet Explorer team is hiring people from Mozilla and from the 'open web' evangelism community. (…) Nadella's put his own stamp and direction on things, but he has also inherited a lot from Ballmer, as well as benefiting from just not being Ballmer. Read more at:

Although that perception of being different from the Balmer has indeed worked in his favor, but it is Nadella's special brand of leadership that has significantly created a positive influence on Microsoft employees. Yahoo Finance conducted a poll among its employees, and here is the general consensus:

• Nadella's decision to change courses and release Office for iPad last year — which brought Microsoft a lot of positive acclaim — was a morale booster;

• Nadella has basically given employees "permission" to do what they already knew they needed to do in order to boost Microsoft's fortunes on non-Windows platforms;

• People walk around more freely with iPhones and Android phones now;

• It's a lot more exciting to work at Microsoft now that Nadella is in charge;

• Nadella is a lot more transparent and open than Ballmer was, and so people feel freer to try new things;

• People used words like "dynamic" and "thrilled" to describe the culture.

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Thus, strong, fearless leadership with a clear vision helps ensure a company's success, more so, when those at the helm believe in and support their people's ideas, unique, diverse talents and potentials.

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