Jeff Bezos Leadership: A Transformational Approach

Running head: JEFF BEZOS LEADERSHIP
JEFF BEZOS LEADERSHIP
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JEFF BEZOS LEADERSHIP1
Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the leadership style of Jeff Bezos who is the founder
owner of the technology giant Amazon. This per will be discussing different types of leadership
styles based on the theories and models and find out the factors are matched with the
characteristics of Bezos and how he has developed his business empire to control the market of
different countries. This paper will also analyze the positive and negative factors preset in the
behaviors or attitudes of the leader, so that the scope of correction can be found.
Style of leadership Jeff Bezos:
Jeff Bezos is an American technology investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist who is
the founder, CEO, president and chairman of Amazon. In the early 1990s Bezos used to work in
different fields in Wall Street despite he had the degree of electrical engineering and computer
science. In 1994, Amazon was found by Bezos and introduced itself as an online bookstore along
with delivering variety of products and services from other companies. Amazon has become one
of the largest provider of cloud infrastructures services through Amazon Web Services. His net
worth currently is $112 billion with which he has surpassed Bill Gates to serve his customers in
most lucrative manner (Garner, 2018). There are some very important traits in Bezos which are
unique themselves and helped him to achieve this position. There is an empty chair tradition
which represents the position of the customer in the strategy making of the company. In addition
to this, the leadership traits of Jeff Bezos has led the employees to become empowered to have
the freedom to disagree and state their opinion as the part of the Amazon’s principles (McGurl,
2016). In addition to this, the leadership skills of Jeff Bezos has included the imaginative and
experiment abilities that has helped the company to transform itself through innovation,
renovation and sometimes elimination. Under the leadership of Jeff Bezos, the company has

JEFF BEZOS LEADERSHIP2
developed a austere work culture where the performance of the employees are assessed regularly.
The employees are also encouraged to comment on one another’s performances. This constant
self-measurement as well as monitoring are important for the employees in the company of
Bezos. It is Bezos’ idea to deploy the method of purposeful Darwinism which is to create a
feeling of competition among the employees so that upliftment of the performance can be made
possible from the workforce (Irani, 2015). In order to understand the leadership style of Jeff
Bezos, the theories of leadership needs to be understood.
Concepts of leadership theories:
Leadership is an important research area and practical skill that encompasses the
capabilities of a person to lead and guide other people or teams or any organizations. There are
different viewpoints among the experts who contrast the eastern and western approaches of
leadership that are seen as the process of defining leadership as the process of social influence of
the others in accomplishing the common tasks. The interest of the leadership psychology has
developed for the last 100 years and a large number of theories have been develops in these years
matching with the demand of the organizations and the changes of the perceptions and demands
of the customers. According to the theorist Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube (2015), like
different types of the personality traits make the leaders effective better suited for the leadership
roles. The early leadership theories used to focus on the qualities of the leaders but the
subsequent theories look at the variables like skills and situational factors related to capabilities
of the leaders. Therefore, some of the very important leadership theories can be discussed here
like trait theories, contingency theories, situational theories, behavioral theories, participative
theories, management theories and relationship theories.