A leader can spend authority on themselves -- on appearing decisive, on appearing in control, on appearing irreplaceable. Or they can spend it on the people around them -- on giving them the ball back, on creating conditions in which other people's confidence and capability can grow. Over a long enough horizon, the second compounds in a way the first never does. And that's exactly what Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella has done.
Aditya Puri is one of the cleanest examples we have, in Indian corporate history, of a leader who understood early that the measure of his work was not what happened while he was in the chair. It was what would keep happening when he was no longer there, says Suresh M K.