Achieving Growth and Success through Effective Leadership

The article discusses the areas that have led to dissatisfaction among employees at Amazon, particularly in the area of 'deliver results.' While Jeff Bezos focused on achieving specific outcomes, he neglected the people involved in achieving those results. This has resulted in a lack of empathy and compassion in his leadership style, leading to distress among employees. Suggestions are made to improve this problem, including adopting traits like empathy and compassion towards employees.

Leadership and Management Development
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Leadership style of Jeff Bezos.....................................................................................................................2
Problems with his leadership style...............................................................................................................3
Areas requiring improvements for effective leadership...............................................................................4
Suggestions to improve the problems related to leadership.........................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Here in this paper, we are going to analyze the leadership style of a very famous personality Mr.
Jeff Bezos who is the CEO of Amazon. We are also going to analyze the problems that are
probably a challenge for his leadership and also the areas which need improvements. Lastly, we
are going to give a few suggestions as to how these problems can be worked upon.
Leadership style of Jeff Bezos
It has been observed that Bezos is a task oriented, transactional and transformational leader. The
various leadership styles followed by him are discussed below:
Bezos as a transactional leader
It has been observed that Bezos is a task-oriented leader and follows a transactional style of
leadership. A transactional leader is generally the one who has set rigorous benchmarks and is
usually not affected by what others think about it. He doesn't take into consideration other
people's opinion. This style of leadership is generally considered as the best style to achieve the
set organizational goals as here subordinates do exactly what their leader wants them to do as
their opinion is not considered. Through this style Bezos is able to create more business
opportunities that are essential to survive in the world of global competition (Hansen, 2013).
Bezos as a transformational leader
Besides being a transactional leader, Bezos is also considered to be a transformational leader as
he gives great output and seeks innovation. As a transactional leader, he has created a fascinating
vision of future for Amazon and which has resulted in the enormous success of Amazon.com.

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This success and had shown his ability to create a vision, inspire and innovate, even when people
did not believe in his vision.
Problems with his leadership style
Under the leadership of Jeff Bezos, Amazon has shown tremendous growth in terms of revenue,
price analysis, sales, and stock. But besides the growth and success that Amazon has achieved
due to the leadership style adopted by Jeff Bezos, still, the employees of the company have been
reported to be not unhappy. This is because there are certain problems with the kind of
leadership style adopted by Bezos which have made him an ineffective leader. The major part
where Bezos needs to work upon is creating a healthy work environment and listening to other's
opinion. Thus, it can be said that in order to become an effective leader, he needs to co-ordinate
both of styles of leadership in order to get the best results.
It has been observed, that Bezos, in order to achieve the organization's goal, puts his employees
through fire drills especially when he takes a personal interest in addressing the issues which are
being raised by its customers. He, in order to get the desired results, doesn’t show any empathy
towards its employees and thus makes work difficult for them. Bezos justifies his style of
leadership on the grounds of frequency, reach and monetary results. Thus, all he believes in is
achieving the desired results (Stone, 2013).
It has been reported that due to this authoritative style of leadership by Bezos, Amazon has
bruised the work culture in the company, and it has cleared that only the fittest will be surviving
and rest would be eliminated considering as a collateral damage.
Bezos demand hours and grueling pace from the employees in order to achieve the results and
where there is no room allowed for mistakes. Employees are given deadlines which seem to be

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unrealistic to achieve, and also a constant criticism. He also disregards the factors like health and
other life circumstances of the employees. And he has created zero boundaries for employees
between work and life. He had adopted a system of ‘BURN and CHURN.' Only the new recruits
who are able to handle the pressures are considered as future stars for the company and rest of
the people gets burn out and leave in a few years.
Bezos has given 14 principles on which his leadership style is based. The main areas that he has
focused while framing these principles are, "customer obsession," "learn and be curious," "invent
and simplify" and "deliver results." All these areas look out to be perfect in order to achieve the
growth and success of the company. But the root cause of the problem that has led to
dissatisfaction among employees is the area of "deliver results." This is because while focusing
on this particular area, Bezos focused on “what” to be achieved and has ignored the fact as to
“how” to be achieved (Collinson, 2015).
With the growth of the company in size, Bezos had become such a result oriented that he ignored
the fact as to how these results were achieved and thereby ignoring the people who helped in
achieving those results and growth. This "deliver the result" is thus combined with "disagree and
commit" and has resulted in a toxic work environment for the whole organization.
Thus, it can be concluded that clearly, Bezos has discouraged empathy and rather has accepted
hostility and sabotage.
Areas requiring improvements for effective leadership
Effective leadership is not a science to be applied as it is but rather it is an art as it requires
personal skills of the leader where he is required to combine his motivational, challenging, and

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strategic skills in order to create an energetic work culture where the employees are encouraged
to think and achieve.
Leadership is all about encouraging people to create ideas and thoughts and assigning them such
responsibilities which will help them in unlocking their hidden talents.
Jeff Bezos is a very effective leader if we see the growth and success of the company, but he has
proved to be inefficient while handling the employees. Thus, he needs to codify its workplace
culture which will enable the employees to live and breathe. Thus, he needs to achieve a balance
between "what" and "how." If one tries to achieve the former without achieving the latter, it can
bring success in the short run, but in the long term, it will definitely be a failure.
There are various areas which require serious improvements. And these are as follows:
Unreasonably high standards and expectations
It has been observed that the company sets such standards which are unreasonably high and
really difficult for people to achieve. These unreasonable expectations and pressures to meet the
standards brings distress among the employees.
Overly forthright leadership
Bezos' leadership includes an eagerness to direct others about what to be achieved and also to
behave. This type of leadership generally limits the potential of others in the organization. This is
because when the employees do exactly what is told by the leader, then they don't get a chance to
give their innovative ideas and thus their talent remains locked.
Breeding unhealthy competition among co-workers

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Bezos has adopted a very transparent work culture when it comes to showing casing the
achievements of its employees. It clearly shows that who has achieved higher and who has not.
Employees are expected to work long hours and even during nights to meet the deadlines. This,
in turn, encourages unhealthy competition among employees and co-workers. The employees in
order to prove themselves better, publicly rip apart their co-worker's ideas while they are in a
meeting. Apart from this, there is feedback tool used by the company called Anytime Feedback
Tool, which allows the employees to directly send praises and complaints of their co-workers to
the bosses in the company. This tool is generally used to sabotage others in the organization.
This is because members are assigned a rank in the company according to their work and those
who get a low rank are asked to leave the company. Thus, every team member rather than
supporting his teammates tries to outdo them.
Insensitive management
It has been observed that the management of the company is insensitive to the problems of the
employees. Be it any medical condition or a life circumstance. It has been reported by many
employees that the management puts equal work pressures even on the employees who are
suffering from great personal hardships like those who are suffering from cancer, miscarriages,
and any other personal issues. They are treated unfairly, and if they do not perform as others,
then they are thrown out of the company without even giving them sufficient time to recover and
perform to the best of their capability (Biraghi, 2015).
Favoring criticism over harmony
Bezos strongly believe in the fact that in order to achieve the best management in the
organization, harmony should not suppress criticism. He believes maintaining harmony in the

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organization is a secondary perspective and in order to achieve the desired performance from
each employee, it is essential to give a painful blunt feedback to the employees. Thus, Bezos has
favored criticism over harmony.
Lack of benefits
Unlike other big organization like Facebook and Google which provides its employees with
personal benefits like gym facility, meals, and other such benefits, Amazon does not offer any
such benefit to the employees. This clearly shows that Bezos doesn't take employees as a
priority.
Disregarding employees' need for work-life balance
it has been reported by many employees of the company that they were given such targets that in
order to meet them they used to spend hours working at their homes even during nights and even
on weekends. They were asked to even work on Sundays, and when they are on vacations and if
they do not give the expected performance due to technical problems like low internet
connection, then they used to face criticism from their superiors.
Lack of praise
It has been observed that those who do not perform up to the expected standards of performance
are thrown out of the company. But at the same time, those who perform unexpectedly well are
not given any praise for their work. This again is a very major reason for distress among the
employees.
Unfair systems of ranking

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Organizational Level Reviews are conducted by the company where the managers have
discussions, and then they determine the ranks that are to be assigned to their subordinates.
These ranks are assigned first to the lower level employees and then to the higher level
employees where ranks are assigned keeping in view to save the more valuable players.
Suggestions to improve the problems related to leadership
It has been seen that empathy and a compassionate work culture is the essence of a good
leadership. Usually, traits like, empathy, kindness, compassion are considered to be weaknesses
of leaders. But in reality, they are their strengths.
Empathy is something which keeps human society together. Empathy is not to be confused with
sympathy. Sympathy is caring about someone and when you feel sorry for some one’s troubles.
But empathy is a wider concept than sympathy. Empathy means to feel and understand another
person’s emotions and feelings.
Whereas compassion can be defined as feeling deep sympathy for someone who is suffering
from the serious problem in his/ her life.
A compassionate work culture is the one where leaders are concerned about their employees and
try to help those who are having problems while working. It is really important to have
compassionate leaders in the organization in order to promote harmony. It has been noticed that a
compassionate workplace brings harmony through the qualities of the leaders like his value and
ethics, kindness, and self-sacrifice (Schoemaker, 2017).
By adopting, empathy and compassion in the leadership style, Bezos can overcome all the
problems that he is facing currently in his work culture.

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It has been suggested that in order to become an empathetic and compassionate leader, one must
following characteristics:
 Must have higher self-awareness.
 Must be open-minded as well as open-hearted
 Must be able to regulate their emotions especially I the situations of crisis and stress
 Must respond intentionally to critical situations rather than responding impulsively.
 Must lead others through examples and not merely through direction
 Must not use the judgment and criticism of others as a strategy to motivate others to
work.
 Must be mindful as they are the ones whose words and actions have a great impact on
others in the organization.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that although Bezos have proved to be a great leader to the outside
world, but he has failed to be an effective leader for his employees. And in order to overcome
this problem, he needs to make certain changes in his style of leadership and the main change
being the adding of traits like empathy and compassion towards the employees.

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References
Hansen, M. T., Ibarra, H., & Peyer, U. (2013). The best-performing CEOs in the world. Harvard
Business Review, 91(1), 81-95
Stone, B. (2013). The everything store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon. Random House.
Collinson, D., & Tourish, D. (2015). Teaching leadership critically: New directions for
leadership pedagogy. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14(4), 576-594.
Biraghi, S., Gambetti, R. C., & Quigley, S. (2017). Leadership and Communication.
In Leadership Today (pp. 229-247). Springer International Publishing.
Schoemaker, P. J., & Krupp, S. (2015). Overcoming barriers to integrating strategy and
leadership. Strategy & Leadership, 43(2), 23-3