A former Microsoft exec shares what Satya Nadella taught him about leadership: 'Quit whining'

• Retired Microsoft CTO Jeffrey Snover recalled a leadership lesson he learned from CEO Satya Nadella.
• In a blog post, Snover said Nadella told execs to "allocate resources ahead of conventional wisdom."
• "Satya was not giving us a pep talk, he was giving us an architecture for success," Snover wrote.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is transforming the company's culture during his tenure, leaving a lasting impression on some current and former employees.

That includes Jeffrey Snover, a retired Microsoft chief technology officer and Google engineer, who recalled an "actionable lesson in leadership" he learned from Nadella in a recent blog post.

In short, he said, Nadella stressed that executives need to figure out how to succeed with the resources they have, rather than complain.

"If you are an exec and don't have the resources to support your strategy, you have the wrong strategy," Snover wrote. "Quit whining and wasting time trying to get the resources to support that strategy — do your job — get a strategy that can work with the resources you have."

In a subsequent statement shared with Business Insider, Snover said he thinks Nadella is "the best CEO in America by a very wide margin."

In the blog post, Snover recalled the speech Nadella gave during a meeting with Microsoft's senior executives that laid out the leadership lesson.

"Don't come whining that you don't have the resources you need. We've done our homework. We've evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities, and allocated our available resources to those opportunities," Nadella said, according to Snover. "That is what you have to work with. Your job is to manufacture success with the resources you've been allocated."

Snover wrote that Nadella, who became CEO in 2014, told executives they could control only two things: How they managed their teams and how they allocated resources.

"And I want to be clear with you. If you are in this room, you need to deliver outsized success. To do that, you will need to allocate resources ahead of conventional wisdom," Nadella said. "Conventional wisdom will generate conventional success, and that won't allow you to stay in this room. You need to have courage and be bold."

Snover, who left Microsoft in 2022, said Nadella's speech provided executives with a framework for thriving.

"Satya was not giving us a pep talk, he was giving us an architecture for success," Snover wrote.

In a follow-up blog post, Snover wrote that project proposals were gathered ahead of the meeting, so it was the "Lord of the Flies/Game of Thrones stage of resource allocation."

"Resource allocation isn't just about money; it's the most effective weapon for killing redundancy and enforcing architectural alignment," Snover wrote. "If you can't afford to build your own silo, you finally start acting like a platform company."

Under Nadella, Microsoft's company culture shifted from being highly competitive toward an emphasis on teamwork, including implementing an evaluation system that rewarded collaboration.