Organizational Leadership: Jeff Bezos and Amazon

Verified

Added on  2022/12/14

|13
|2928
|188
AI Summary
This report provides an insight into organizational leadership, focusing on Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. It discusses his leadership style, greatest achievements, and significant challenges faced. The report also explores three leadership concepts and their applicability to Bezos. It concludes with implications for personal leadership style.
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Contribute Materials

Your contribution can guide someone’s learning journey. Share your documents today.
Document Page
Running head: MANAGEMENT
Organizational Leadership
Name of the Student:
Name of the Course and Number:
Name of the Instructor:
Date of Submission
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Secure Best Marks with AI Grader

Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
Document Page
1MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary:
The aim of the report is to provide an insight into the organizational leadership. The
report here focuses on a specific leader who presently holds leadership position and remains
responsible in certain capacities for employees. The leader chosen for this report is Jeff Bezos,
the founder, CEO and the president of Amazon. The report commences with an overview of Jeff
Bezos along with an analysis of leadership style, his greatest achievement and significant
challenges faced. The report also discusses three leadership concepts and how it remains
applicable in case of the chosen leader. From the research it can be found that effective
leadership qualities enable the leaders in achieving the organizational goals. The research also
helps in making certain implications on the personal leadership style.
.
Document Page
2MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Overview:........................................................................................................................................3
Analysis:..........................................................................................................................................6
Leadership Style:..........................................................................................................................6
Three Significant Challenges Faced by the Leader.....................................................................7
Greatest Achievement of Jeff Bezos as Leader...........................................................................7
Three Leadership Concepts..........................................................................................................8
Description of the Leadership Style Based on the Concepts.......................................................9
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................10
Learnings about the Leadership.................................................................................................10
Implications on the Personal Leadership Style..........................................................................10
References:....................................................................................................................................11
Document Page
3MANAGEMENT
Introduction:
The report aims at providing an overview of organizational leadership. Leadership
represents a procedure through which a person is able to inspire, direct and motivate activities in
achieving the organizational goals. Organizational leadership represented the field of work that
included setting of the goals for the individuals and the group (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer,
2013). This field of work includes working on the larger projects with the corporations and
business and the smaller projects with the group of people sharing similar outlook. The report
focuses on a particular leader who currently holds a leadership position and remains responsible
in some capacity for the employees. The report commences with an overview of the chosen
leader and an analysis of the leadership style, significant challenges and greatest achievement. It
also provides a reflection on the implication and learning.
Overview:
The report focuses on the leadership role of Jeff Bezos as the CEO, founder and the
chairman of Amazon.com Stone (2013). He holds the responsibility of guiding the organization
in achieving its goals. As a part of his responsibility, he ensures that the organization possess
customer friendly mindset, focus on road map for future, ensure continuous creation of the newer
business, ensure the creation of the multiple paths, acting as the slowdown officer for the bigger
bets, possess a willingness of taking risk and acquiring of newer institutional skills and turning of
the institutional skills for the development of newer business.
Jeff Bezos has been the CEO of the internet retailer company Amazon. It is a technology
based American multinational company headquartered in Washington (aboutamazon.com, 2013).
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Secure Best Marks with AI Grader

Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
Document Page
4MANAGEMENT
The company focuses on cloud computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence and digital
streaming. It is considered as one of the biggest technology companies along with Apple, Google
and Facebook. The company is recognized for the disruption of the well established industries
through mass scale and technological innovation. In terms of market capitalization and revenue
also, it is one of the biggest e-commerce marketplaces, cloud computing platform and artificial
intelligence (AI) provider.
Initially, the company began as the online marketplace for the books which later on
expanded for selling video games, electronics, software, apparel, food, furniture, jewelry and
toys. In terms of market capitalization, Amazon surpassed Walmart, as the most priceless retailer
in 2015. The company also acquired the Whole Foods Market in 2017 for a whopping valuation
of $13.4 billion which also enhanced the presence of Amazon as brick and mortar retailer. In the
year 2018, Jeff Bezos introduced a two day trial delivery service known as Amazon Prime that
had close to 100 million subscribers across the world (Reilly, 2018).
Amazon have also undertaken distribution of downloads and streaming of audiobook,
music and video through the Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video and the Audible subsidiaries.
The company also has a publishing arm known as the Amazon Publishing, Amazon Studios and
the cloud computing subsidiary known as the Amazon Web Services. Besides, the company also
produces consumer electronics like e-readers, Kindle, Fire tablets, Echo devices and Fire TV.
As far as the culture is concerned, Amazon is known for the culture of pushing the
employees in taking risk and exploring ideas. This particular cultural condition is vital for the
capacity of the company in seeking newer opportunities for utilization of the data intensive
process thereby providing an effective retail online service. The company states, “we’re a
Document Page
5MANAGEMENT
company of pioneers. It’s our job to make bold bets, and we get our energy from inventing on
behalf of customers. Success is measured against the possible, not the probable. For today’s
pioneers, that’s exactly why there’s no place on Earth they’d rather build than Amazon.” This
implies that the culture of the organization portrays the following characteristics which include
(Huguen, 2017):
Peculiarity: This characteristic of the culture represents the idea of the challenging
conventions. For instance, the company motivates the employees in viewing themselves and their
work differently from the conventional means of doing the business. The company believes that
the conventions imposes limits the potential growth of the business. This feature of the corporate
culture of Amazon motivates the employees in thinking out of the box and in bringing e-
commerce business to the maximum potential.
Boldness: This particular characteristic of culture portrays how Amazon is pioneered in
selling wider items online. Besides, the employees of Amazon have been encouraged in taking
risk by considering newer ideas to the business. Further, to emphasize this characteristic, the
company facilitated openness towards the newer ideas based on diversity policy of the
organization. This feature enables Amazon in identifying the ideas in solving problems and
improving the e-commerce business.
Customer centricity: As far as this cultural feature is concerned, Amazon reinforces the
focus of the workers on the demands and needs of the customers (Ulaga, 2018). The company
constantly strives determining the changes and the trends in the customer preferences in the
online retail service. Through this, Amazon tries to maintain the effectiveness in ensuring
customer satisfaction with the expansion of the e-commerce business.
Document Page
6MANAGEMENT
It is to be noted that Jeff Bezos has been in the position since he found the company in
1994. Jeff Bezos has been an American philanthropist, investor and technology entrepreneur. He
was born in the city of Mexico and brought up in Texas (Kennedy, 2018). He did his graduation
from the Princeton University in the year 1986 and acquired degrees in computer science and
electrical engineering. He found Amazon during a cross country road trip from the city of New
York to Seattle. He stared the company as online bookstore that expanded to various products
and services that included audio and video streaming. Presently, the company is the largest
online retailer and also the largest provider of the cloud services. Jeff Bezos also added to the
business interest by finding the aerospace company known as Blue Origin in the year 2000
whose test flight reached the space successfully in the year 2015. He acquired The Washington
Post in the year 2013 for a whopping US$250 million. He is also known to manage its business
investments through its venture capital fund known as the Bezos Expeditions.
Analysis:
Leadership Style:
The leadership style of Jeff Bezos was transformational who conjured a charismatic and
powerful vision thereby leading Amazon to newer heights (Breuer & Szillat, 2019). For example,
Jeff Bezos places a greater deal of focus on the wants of the customers. He also made the
company realize that the customers hated defects, delays and the out of stock products.
Amazon’s metrics put across that even a 0.1 second delay in loading a page has been equivalent
to a drop of 1 percent in the customer activity. Hence, the company tirelessly works in improving
loading rate.
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
7MANAGEMENT
As a leader Jeff Bezos also have higher expectations from the employees. The employees
worked until late hours for getting books shipped and often ended up on their knees for packing
books. Thus, by having higher expectations from employee, Bezos created an efficient machine
that become famous for making deliveries in over a dozen cities of the United States.
Three Significant Challenges Faced by the Leader
Some of the significant challenges faced by Jeff Bezos are as follows (Graham, 2017):
Challenges of Keeping up with the E-Commerce Growth: The e-commerce business lost
its steam with Amazon recording growth of only 10 percent in the segment while the
higher margin business from Online Store Unit recorded over 50 percent of the revenue.
Challenges of Keeping the Rivals Away: Amazon has been an undisputed leader in the e-
commerce and been successful in keeping Walmart at bay by pulling back on the
promotions and the price matching.
Challenges in Balancing Profits and Investments: Amazon tried hard in plowing earnings
into business. The new initiatives in payments, logistics and healthcare implied that the
company had inflection towards the next aggressive investment.
Greatest Achievement of Jeff Bezos as Leader
As a leader, Jeff Bezos had the ability of convincing others in following him that showed
up not only in the ability of finding investors but determining the success of Amazon. As a leader
he even motivated the employees during early years when the company was still expanding and
did not bring in profits. In fact, Jeff Bezos demonstrated the ability of inspiring the employees
through ups and down of the fast growing company. His biggest achievement lay in making
Document Page
8MANAGEMENT
Amazon the biggest store that sold anything and everything that sold closer to $10.1 billion
products in the year 2018 (Anders, 2019).
Three Leadership Concepts
The three concepts of leadership include:
Clarity of Communication and Thought: Leaders communicate and think clearly. They
put forward a vision for the future which the people find compelling and works harder
towards achieving it (Northouse, 2017). It is to be noted that if the employees remain
confused about the strategy and mission and does not find it credible or motivating they
will not follow the leaders with the required focus and determination.
Judgment Regarding the People: Leaders possess great intuition about the people
especially when it comes to the selection of the people to whom the power and the
responsibility is assigned (Chance, 2013). They can see the hidden potential of the people
and detect the cases where the ambition exceeded the ability. They also have the power to
address the promotion or the hiring mistake in situations when employees cannot be
improved.
Personal Commitment and Integrity: Leaders possess exceptional levels of
commitment and integrity towards a mission (Yang, Tsai & Liao, 2014). Integrity refers
to standing for meaningful things and possess the capacity of admitting when the leader
make mistakes instead of acting that he or she is always right and have the required level
of humility in receiving feedback and work towards it for improvement. It implies
avoiding behavior like conflict of interest, favoritism, inappropriate work relationship and
language that erodes the trust factors.
Document Page
9MANAGEMENT
Description of the Leadership Style Based on the Concepts
Jeff Bezos makes the concept of clarity in communication effective by ensuring that the
thoughts are communicated in paragraphs and complete sentences. Thus, the company structures
the minutes of the meeting in six page memo. This is because although the power point
presentation is interrupted but memos are read thoroughly.
He also made the concept of judging the people effectively by considering the following
things (Allio, 2015):
He encouraged the Amazon recruiters in thinking about the personal opinion regarding
the candidate.
He also aimed at getting a sense of the capacity of the person for the purpose of
innovation
He also placed equal importance on the individual talent of the candidate.
As far as the concept of personal commitment and integrity are concerned, Jeff Bezos
believed in instituting a specific phrase ‘disagree and commit’ in order to save time. This
approach helped in fostering healthier disagreements and open discussions while inclining
towards the need for the speed over comfort of the consensus. This also helped the leader in
jotting down the perspective of everyone for capturing different perspectives. He further adds
that the concept of that “disagree and commit” does not imply surrendering but making genuine
decision in trusting the team. He described it as the genuine disagreement of the opinion, candid
expression of the view, a chance for team in weighing his view and ensuring sincere and quick
commitments in moving forward.
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Secure Best Marks with AI Grader

Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
Document Page
10MANAGEMENT
Conclusion:
Learnings about the Leadership
The research shows how effective leadership qualities of a leader can determine the
success of an organization. The leader not only needs to be committed but possess the basic
criterion of honesty, integrity and clarity of communication in order to achieve its goals. The
research also portrays that challenges would be a part of leadership which needed to be dealt
efficiently.
Implications on the Personal Leadership Style
Like Jeff Bezos, it is vital for basing the strategy on things that would not change. It is
also necessary to have a bigger plan that offers lower prices, reliable and fast delivery and
a wider selection.
It is also necessary for obsessing over customers. To ensure success of the business it is
necessary to consider the customers as an important component and devise strategy
accordingly.
From the leadership of Jeff Bezos, it is vital to understand that failures are a part of being
inventive. These stumbles are necessary for ensuring that organizations learn something
useful.
Document Page
11MANAGEMENT
References:
aboutamazon.com (2013). Retrieved from https://www.aboutamazon.com/
Allio, R. J. (2015). Good strategy makes good leaders. Strategy & Leadership, 43(5), 3-9.
Anders. G (2019). Jeff Bezos Reveals His No. 1 Leadership Secret.Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0423/ceo-compensation-12-amazon-technology-
jeff-bezos-gets-it.html
Breuer, S., & Szillat, P. (2019). Leadership And Digitalization: Contemporary Approaches
Towards Leading In The Modern Day Workplace.
Chance, P. (2013). Introduction to educational leadership & organizational behavior.
Routledge.
Choudhary, A. I., Akhtar, S. A., & Zaheer, A. (2013). Impact of transformational and servant
leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of business
ethics, 116(2), 433-440.
forbes.com (2013).Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2013/04/24/7-
steps-to-a-truly-effective-leadership-style/
Graham, J (2017). Amazon’s Biggest Challenge. Retrieved from
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazons-biggest-challenge_b_8062784?
guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer
_sig=AQAAAEcZ0mShoXLPFfLfCJSMkvlau2T3AOtDZVgVbRU8bZwS5lqa81DSEZ
Document Page
12MANAGEMENT
Uiirp7WZNyULp2-U9epME670pHL8luaLgheggsdJE48fof6NxGzRa-
wgMY8whUyVnUR5mIb4gdPS1Arw4HR016XRSZaoVfr2hpb5gLYsTxpcBxyshlnJSS
Hourston, R. (2013, April 24). 7 steps to a truly effective leadership style
Huguen. P ( 2017).What Is The Internal Culture Like At Amazon?. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/10/11/what-is-the-internal-culture-like-at-
amazon/
Kennedy, D. (2018). The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking
Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century. University Press of New England.
Northouse, P. G. (2017). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.
Reilly. K ( 2018). Amazon Has More Than 100 Million Prime Subscribers, Reveals Jeff Bezos.
Retrieved from https://time.com/5245969/amazon-prime-100-million-subscribers-jeff-
bezos/
Stone, B. (2013). The everything store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon. Random House.
Ulaga, W. (2018). The journey towards customer centricity and service growth in B2B: a
commentary and research directions. AMS Review, 8(1-2), 80-83.
Yang, F. H., Tsai, Y. S., & Liao, W. S. (2014). Examining the mechanisms linking behavioral
integrity and affective commitment: The mediating role of charismatic
leadership. International Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online), 6(3), 153.
chevron_up_icon
1 out of 13
circle_padding
hide_on_mobile
zoom_out_icon
[object Object]

Your All-in-One AI-Powered Toolkit for Academic Success.

Available 24*7 on WhatsApp / Email

[object Object]