Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calls this the hardest skill that both leaders and employees can learn; and how his wife inspired him to develop it

​Satya Nadella believes empathy is the hardest skill leaders and employees can master. The Microsoft CEO has pushed back on the common practice of filing empathy away as just another soft skill. In his view, the ability to truly understand others sits above the rest of the leadership toolkit, and he says it took becoming a father to a disabled son to fully grasp why.“Empathy is not a soft skill,” Nadella said in a 2023 interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. “In fact, it’s the hardest skill we learn—to relate to the world, to relate to people that matter the most to us.”​Nadella argued that empathy doesn’t just help leaders connect with their teams. He said it also drives what companies build for the people who buy their products. “In fact, innovation is about meeting the unmet, unarticulated needs of customers,” he added. “What’s the source of that? Some would say design thinking. But design thinking is empathy.”​

Nadella beats the empathy drum

​This isn’t the first time the Indian-American executive, who became Microsoft’s chief in 2014, has championed empathy as a workplace priority. On an episode of LinkedIn’s “Hello Monday” podcast, Nadella argued that empathetic leadership directly translates into better output.​“If you have empathy for your people, they will do their best work and you’ll make progress,” he said.​Nadella has also spoken about how raising his late son, Zain, shaped his approach to leadership. Zain, who lived with cerebral palsy and was quadriplegic, died in February 2022 at the age of 26. In a 2017 LinkedIn post, Nadella credited his wife, Anu, with teaching him the value of empathy long before he applied it at Microsoft.​“As [Zain’s] parents, it was up to us not to question ‘why,’ but instead to do everything we could to improve his life,” Nadella wrote. “From her I have learned that when I infuse empathy into my everyday actions, it is powerful, whether they be in my role as a father or as a CEO.”​He went further, tying his family experience directly to his management philosophy. “Becoming a father of a son with special needs…has shaped my personal passion for and philosophy of connecting new ideas to empathy for others,” he wrote. “And it is why I am deeply committed to pushing the bounds on what love and compassion combined with human ingenuity and passion to have impact can accomplish with my colleagues at Microsoft.”​

Sports are key to soft skills building

​Beyond fatherhood, Nadella has pointed to another formative influence on his leadership style: cricket. Growing up playing the sport, he said, left a lasting mark on how he approaches teams today. “Team sports have a huge bearing on who we become as citizens and leaders,” Nadella said.​Former cricketer Zaheer Khan, who joined Nadella on a panel, drew a similar line between the sport and corporate leadership. “Cricket is a symphony, and every player is a note in that composition. Leadership in cricket is about being a guiding light and source of inspiration,”​Khan said, adding that the sport teaches leaders to guide “not with arrogance but with humility.” Reflecting on Nadella’s career, Khan said, “In the journey of Satya Nadella, we see a reflection of these principles in the corporate world.”​The connection between athletics and leadership is more than anecdotal. Research has revealed that students with a background in competitive sports are significantly more likely to pursue an MBA, attain senior job titles, and receive higher salaries than their counterparts. It seems that the communication, teamwork and leadership skills translate from the playing field to the boardroom as well.