Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a blog on Linkedin revealed the lessons he learned from his mother. The CEO of Microsoft made this post to mark the Women’s Day 2017.
The Microsoft CEO, In a post titled, Enduring lessons from my mother, wrote:
The year is 1970. In a warm lecture room at Padmavathi College in Tirupati, India, a young college professor stands at the head of the class, giving a lecture on ancient Sanskrit drama. Her students feverishly take notes, digesting every word. They barely notice the unexpected guest in the classroom — a young toddler, about 3 years old, playing with a wooden train at the professor’s feet, oblivious to his surroundings.
That toddler was me. The professor, my mother.
Today, in countries like the U.S. and Canada, “Take Our Children to Work” days are more common, but this was unusual in India at that time.
During my early years, I would accompany my mother everywhere — to her college classes and as she fulfilled civic duties as the wife of an Indian Administrative Service officer, tasked with administrating government services to a district with millions of people.
It wasn’t until decades later that I could begin to understand the choices my mother had to make that day in the classroom and every other day — between balancing her work and her family, her professional ambitions and her role as wife and mother, and her passions and her routine.
Even now, I know I can understand only to a certain point. Although we shared many things — our sense of humor and mindfulness of practicing things that nourish your soul as much as your intellect — I know that the barriers and challenges she faced as a working mother were far, far greater than mine.
This is one reason celebrating International Women’s Day is so important — to recognize and honor the tremendous value women around the world provide every single day, but also to help remove barriers for the next generation.
In technology and in so many other STEM-focused industries, there is a particularly intense, pressing need to address these barriers. But how do we start? Above all else, we must close the gender gap. Women are sorely under-represented in these fields both in the United States and globally, which is not only a matter of fairness, but of societal and economic harm — in no uncertain terms, we all are negatively impacted when women are not engaged and treated equitably.
I have learned that it is much more difficult to follow your dreams without strong, visible role models to whom you can aspire. To that end, we started a movement last year to inspire girls, as well as the parents, educators and nonprofits that encourage and support them, to #MakeWhatsNext. For us, highlighting the incredible stories of women at Microsoft and elsewhere who are responsible for innovations we rely on every day is one of the best ways to help girls understand that they too can change the world.
This year, we are challenging girls to stay in STEM fields so they are empowered to solve the big problems they care about most. With the right investments of time, resources and energy, there is no telling what can be achieved. So, today, I encourage you to learn more about how we can all inspire girls to stay focused on STEM and #MakeWhatsNext.
I’m no longer a child playing at my mother’s feet, but I will always be a man looking up to a woman — my mother, my wife, my daughters, my Microsoft colleagues and so many others — for the lessons in life that define who I am as a father, husband and CEO.
#IWD2017
This is the original post of Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, and no changes or editing has been done anywhere in this.
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