People in leadership positions behave differently, which has necessitated the exploration of research on whether there is a universal set of behaviors that define the efficiency of a leader or if there are situational or follower factors influencing the types of behaviors required in building teams. On February 2014, Satya Nadella was appointed as the Microsoft CEO, where he has been regarded as being more outspoken compared to his predecessors such as Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (Stevenson, 2014) . The dynamic in the article seems to be a great application of the “leader, follower situation” framework since Nadella had inherited the Microsoft-Nokia joint venture that had failed to make a dent in the market dominance of giants like Apple and Samsung. Nadella had to portray his follower-leadership trait by nixing his ambitions and ramping up investment in artificial intelligence and commercial cloud computing (Stevenson, 2014) . He ensured that the people dynamics are defined in learning the key followership lessons that served those in lower management positions well as he never put the blame on those below him or Ballmer, his predecessor.
Nadella shows signs of emotional intelligence. The leader has attributes such as self-awareness, self-management, empathy, relationship management, and effective communication skills. The emotional intelligence of a leader such as Nadella comes from the 360-degree feedback finding that is associated with the contagion effect. It is evident that outstanding bosses will always attract and retain high-performing followers especially when the followers happen to occupy leadership positions and if they are perceived to be effective leaders (Stevenson, 2014) . In his tenure as the Microsoft CEO, Nadella has formed meaningful relationships with high-performing followers such as Hector Rodriguez, who has also passed the personality and intelligence assessments in information security (Stevenson, 2014) . The other way in which Nadella has portrayed emotional intelligence is by forming meaningful relationships with followers such as Craig Mundie, who started the division of consumer platforms and who has successfully managed the production of Windows CE for the hand-held and automotive systems. The association with people like Chris Liddell, the former chief financial officer is also a sign that Nadella can manage relationships and can be deemed fit in terms of emotional intelligence (Stevenson, 2014) . Consequently, the emotional intelligence in the leadership of Nadella was tested when Microsoft initiated big workforce reorganization in the sales division (Stevenson, 2014) . His strategy of considering the jobs of some employees was based on the fact that the employees with lower emotional quotient reported more emotional negative reactions and used less effective coping strategies when dealing with a situation such as downsizing.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Thinking through the Leadership Grid, the “team style” of leadership seems more relevant for Nadella. This is from the fact that the leader has both traits of contributing and committing. In this type of leadership, high concerns are paid to the people and to production. As the CEO, Nadella encourages teamwork and commitment among employees (Stevenson, 2014) . He has succeeded in making the employees feel as if they are the constructive parts of Microsoft. For instance, when he realized that the joint venture with Nokia was not working at first, he nixed those ambitions and ramped up investments in artificial intelligence and commercial cloud computing, where employees worked like a team in achieving the objectives set therein (Stevenson, 2014) . The result was an increase in the cloud services revenue, while the stock price was higher compared to the performance levels of his predecessors.
The leadership competencies that Nadella portray include communicating a compelling vision for the future and setting challenging goals and expectations. Nadella has always explained the corporate transformation that saw Microsoft invest in artificial intelligence and commercial cloud computing, which was a challenging goal and whose expectations are being realized. He has always communicated the vision and strived towards making people achieve their full potential by ensuring that employees work as a team towards this vision (Stevenson, 2014) . Consequently, Nadella made the right decision to write down the entire value of the acquisition of Nokia, where he should keep the pace of improved performance by investing more in research and development.
Reference
Stevenson, S. (2014). A Rare Joint Interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Bill Gates. Wall Street Journal , 1-4. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rare-joint-interview-with-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-and-bill-gates-1506358852
1
