Ballmer visits Wharton after 30 years; Wharton hopes it won't be another 30 before he returns
Siddharth Mundra, WG'07
Issue date: 12/4/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 2 next >
The last time Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation visited Penn was 30 odd years back when he represented Harvard in a Penn-Harvard football game. So it was something of a historic moment when Steve (as he likes being called) agreed to speak in the Wharton Leadership Lecture series.
Steve immediately engaged the audience with his energetic and bubbly nature. His view of leadership involved a great degree of personalization where each person evolved their own model of leadership after listening and learning from other leaders. Thus people who were able to listen effectively and translate the learnings to personally relevant ideas became great leaders over time. A large part of leadership, in his view, was driven by personal characteristics and values - for instance a leader should have the characteristic of setting big goals and driving forward towards them. He said that most great leaders have an innate value system that they possess at birth which they hone over time. He emphatically said that no one is born a leader.
Steve viewed passion and love for what you do as essential to being a great leader. If you put your heart into your work, whatever it may be, you will succeed. When he thinks about what opportunities he had out of business school, he did not see leadership being displayed in investment banking or consulting. When Bill Gates presented him with the idea of putting a PC on every desk, he fell in love with the idea. He liked an industry that was fast changing and had the challenge of the unknown. He said that people need a grander purpose in life to drive them - for him it was about putting a PC on every desk.
The other critical aspect of leadership according to Steve is prioritizing people. Attracting, retaining and enabling great people were his daily priorities at Microsoft. He acknowledged that this has become a cliché especially because few people know how to properly implement prioritization of people.
Steve emphasized the importance of making choices as a leader. Does the company want to have a short term or long term outlook? Does it want to focus on innovation or efficiency? Microsoft is focused on the long term and considers innovation as critical to its survival. The leadership at Microsoft has made those choices and provided direction to the company. Steve said that the company needs to have a long term outlook because technologies take several years to become commercial successes - it took them three attempts to get Windows right. Because software is not something that wears with time, innovation is critical to make people continuously upgrade to newer software. In his view leaders need to be patient, optimistic and realistic about the company's future.
Steve immediately engaged the audience with his energetic and bubbly nature. His view of leadership involved a great degree of personalization where each person evolved their own model of leadership after listening and learning from other leaders. Thus people who were able to listen effectively and translate the learnings to personally relevant ideas became great leaders over time. A large part of leadership, in his view, was driven by personal characteristics and values - for instance a leader should have the characteristic of setting big goals and driving forward towards them. He said that most great leaders have an innate value system that they possess at birth which they hone over time. He emphatically said that no one is born a leader.
Steve viewed passion and love for what you do as essential to being a great leader. If you put your heart into your work, whatever it may be, you will succeed. When he thinks about what opportunities he had out of business school, he did not see leadership being displayed in investment banking or consulting. When Bill Gates presented him with the idea of putting a PC on every desk, he fell in love with the idea. He liked an industry that was fast changing and had the challenge of the unknown. He said that people need a grander purpose in life to drive them - for him it was about putting a PC on every desk.
The other critical aspect of leadership according to Steve is prioritizing people. Attracting, retaining and enabling great people were his daily priorities at Microsoft. He acknowledged that this has become a cliché especially because few people know how to properly implement prioritization of people.
Steve emphasized the importance of making choices as a leader. Does the company want to have a short term or long term outlook? Does it want to focus on innovation or efficiency? Microsoft is focused on the long term and considers innovation as critical to its survival. The leadership at Microsoft has made those choices and provided direction to the company. Steve said that the company needs to have a long term outlook because technologies take several years to become commercial successes - it took them three attempts to get Windows right. Because software is not something that wears with time, innovation is critical to make people continuously upgrade to newer software. In his view leaders need to be patient, optimistic and realistic about the company's future.
Be the first to comment on this story