CEO Use Case: Satya Nadella, a Man of Empathy
When Satya Nadella took over the position of Microsoft’s CEO in 2014, everybody was ready for a change. After all, he was succeeding Steve Ballmer, who, as the previous head of the company, had brought his brass personality to the job and was notoriously famous for his unorthodox public appearances. He often took to the stage while screaming, “I love this company!” and dancing around in a manner that was seen as excessive even by the outlandish standards of Silicon Valley.
But Nadella seemed a bit too much of a change for some; a quiet and unassuming long-time Microsoft employee, the most astonishing characteristic he had was that nobody seemed able to say anything bad about him. That was particularly relevant in a corporate culture as competitive as the one Bill Gates had developed in Microsoft for years and where everybody strived not only to be the smartest person in the room but also to show it.
From the get-go it was clear that Nadella was a team player and very adept at building personal connections. As a big fan of the sport of cricket, he knew that not a single person has all the answers and that the key to revitalizing the company was the same one needed to play that game: people had to work together. He went as far as recruiting an NFL sports psychologist to help his leadership team bond in a similar manner to that in which high-performance sport teams do.
For Nadella, communication is not just an abstract concept. His oft-quoted three rules of leadership are: (1) provide clarity, (2) generate excitement, and (3) make things happen, all of which require extraordinary engagement skills from a manager.
Nadella’s focus on communication and empathy is evident in one of the anecdotes mentioned in his 2017 book Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, where he describes the scenic, all-expenses-paid retreats where senior members of the management team would gather from time to time:
One aspect of the off-site really bugged me. Here we were with all this talent, all this bandwidth, and all this IQ in one place just talking at each other in the deep woods. And frankly it seems like most of the talking was about poking holes in each other’s ideas. Enough. I figured it was time to hit refresh and experiment.
He changed the dynamic of the retreat by bringing in more junior, younger members, in order to break the exclusivity of membership and include new perspectives:
These new Microsoft leaders were mission-oriented, innovative, born in the mobile-first and cloud-first world. I knew we could learn from their fresh, outside perspective. The only problem was that most of these leaders did not officially qualify to go to the executive retreat given the person’s level in the organization. To make matters worse neither did the manager, or even the manager’s manager. Remember, the retreat had been only for the most senior leaders. Inviting them was not one of my more popular decisions. But they showed up bright-eyed, completely ignorant of the history. They asked questions. They share their own journeys. They pushed us to be better.
No matter what the initial reaction was or how difficult changing the Microsoft corporate culture turned out to be, as a result of his new perspective, Nadella was responsible for turning around the fortunes of Microsoft, a very large corporation, which while still relevant, had been seen for years as outdated. He worked on developing a whole new host of cloud infrastructure and services that revitalized the company and increased the stock price over 130 percent by the time he was done.
Further than that, his success proved that the image of authoritarian leadership as an essential condition to run large corporations in a highly competitive environment is not necessarily correct. Both Nadella’s behavioral type, which relies on cooperation, sincerity, and interdependability between team members, and his calm manner and calmer approach correspond to the most egalitarian of styles: the supporter.
The Bases of the Supporter Behavioral Style
The supporter is a sympathetic behavioral style that relies on personal connection and empathy. The supporter can be described as the “gregarious democrat,” two words that summarize quite well this particular mindset.
- Gregarious because supporters like to engage in interpersonal communication; they are usually good listeners who focus on cooperation, sincerity, and being dependable.
- Democrat because they are sincere egalitarians, who often dismiss the most competitive aspects of corporate behavior and are, therefore, more willing to be of service to others.
Supporters in culture and media are often portrayed as the heart of the group; they are the characters who help maintain balance and create consensus so the plot moves ahead, deftly offsetting the abruptness of the controller or the remoteness of the analyst to bring the team together in the moments of crisis. This is the affable Porthos in the three musketeers, Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) in Ghostbusters, or even Ringo Starr in the Beatles.
With a causal style and friendly manner, the supporter comes across as a very likable person. It is no surprise then that, within an organization, supporters often fill roles in human resources or those positions that require reconciling factions as well as applying a personal touch to intergroup problem-solving. The supporter has a higher-than-average sense of what the emotional motivators are that drive other people’s actions and can apply a calm, dependable approach.
Taken to the extreme, the supporter behavioral style can come across as too consensual, when their tendency to avoid conflict results in a lack of assertiveness; they like to agree with the majority because it prevents them from upsetting others. In those cases, it is important for the supporter to realize that being a good team player and wanting to build positive relationships cannot come at any price. Because of their informal leanings, supporters can find trouble in an environment that lacks structure; they prosper better in a clear goal-setting system since, on their own, planning is neither a priority nor a strength.
The supporter style benefits from learning formal traits from both the controller and the analyst. Adding a proactive attitude will take them closer to the promoter style, which means increasing decisiveness while retaining that elusive quality that makes them come across as sincere in their personal interaction with others.
The Supporter at the Table: Negotiation
and Communication Style
The supporter is the ultimate “people’s person.” This is a behavioral style that is at its best when engaging with others, and supporters make the best of this ability. Their inclination to be responsive rather than proactive means listening comes naturally, while their informal approach makes it easy for others to relate to them. Supporters excel at creating lasting relationships and developing close links that go beyond the work environment. Also, their empathy sets this as the most accepting of all four behavioral styles and can, with equal ease, build rapport with either the controller, the analyst, or the promoter.
From a communication perspective, supporters are unpretentious and do not try to impose their opinion on others, but this open disposition comes with two drawbacks:
- The first one is a lack of urgency. Building relationships toward an objective takes time, and the supporter will happily subordinate this setup to the objective itself. Where a style like the controller is results-driven, it could be said that the supporter is process-driven, similar to the analyst, but with a more human dimension, which can result in loss of focus or significant delays.
- The second is, as the name indicates, an inclination to support, often putting others ahead of themselves and, as a result, falling short of their own objectives. Even when supporters see this happening, their empathic nature will not allow them to change priorities spontaneously.
The best way to engage with a supporter is by letting communication happen in a natural way. Rather than holding a meeting, simply getting together with him or her in a more informal setting (coffee or lunch) will achieve the same result and will feel more organic.
The Supporter at the Helm: Leadership Style
The supporter is a leader of consensus. Even if they have the power to implement decisions, supporters will often look for a way to make theirs palatable for the whole team. These are inclusive leaders, who find power by empowering others, and their personal skills mean they can get the best performance out of their subordinates not via pressure but by having them be invested in the larger goals.
One of the biggest advantages of the supporter leader is his or her willingness to include and accept opposite views from the team in the decision process. Supporters will often have members who can play devil’s advocate and will listen to all opinions even if these clash with their own. A derived benefit of this is that the supporter’s decisions carry a low risk factor because they are not based on a single perspective but rather on an amalgamation of inputs that, ideally, distills the best characteristics of all approaches.
When talking about the negative traits of the supporter leadership, the two main issues they encounter are:
- A tendency to become passive if consensus cannot be achieved because of their reluctance to enforce decisions from a top-down perspective.
- A tendency to be overly trusting at a personal level, with the corresponding risk of having subordinates undermining their authority.
The Supporter: Relationships Chart
