Understanding and Leading Change in Amazon

Running head: UNDERSTANDING AND LEADING CHANGE IN AMAZON
Understanding and Leading Change in Amazon
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Authors Note:

1UNDERSTANDING AND LEADING CHANGE IN AMAZON
Task 3: Leadership Approaches to Deal with Change in a Range
of Organisational Contexts Including the Change Required for Amazon
Introduction
Amazon is facing different change barriers that are resulting in decreased profits of the
company. The objective of the essay is to analyse the suitable leadership approaches those can be
implemented in Amazon in dealing with change taking place in the organisation focussed on
barriers to change faced by the company.
Discussion
Understanding the Required Change
It has been identified that Amazon is one of the leading global online retailers. However,
it has been confronted with different issues in relation to its supply chain management. Firstly,
the organisation does not ensure smooth flow of communication from the higher levels to the
lower levels (Al-Haddad and Kotnour 2015). Hence, the concern is directly associated with the
work culture of the organisation. Another issue confronting the organisation is the inappropriate
management behaviour that caused resentment among the staffs. More precisely, the
management has set unrealistic goals, which are almost impossible to be accomplished by the
staffs. Along with this, the staffs are facing unhealthy competition among them and this issue
needs to be addressed with effective care.
Finally, the managers lack the desired skills in Amazon in motivating their subordinates.
This has minimised the motivational level of the employees working in different departments in

2UNDERSTANDING AND LEADING CHANGE IN AMAZON
Amazon (Alvesson and Sveningsson 2015). There has been absence of adequate training and
development schemes that have hindered the progress of staff growth within the organisation. As
a result, the employees of Amazon have become resistant to change and the organisation would
find it difficult to implement effective change management strategies in its supply chain
management process for enhancing its business operations (Amazon.com 2019).
Analysing Barriers and Resistance to Change
It is vital to recognise the barriers faced by Amazon long with its current culture in order
to develop a leadership approach that is not contradicting the organisational culture which can
cause increased resistance from employees (Antonakis and Day 2017). The identified barriers
faced by Amazon that needs to be addressed through suitable leadership approaches
implementation are explained below:
 Amazon has the organisational culture of ruthless working environment which is
observed to affect the communication flow among the employees regarding change. This
acts as a great barrier in successful change implementation and the lack of employee
engagement within the company’s decision making process can lead to increasing change
barrier in attaining global profit growth (Khan et al. 2018).
 Another change barrier that is observed in Amazon is inefficient management behaviour
that is not supporting change that it is planning to implement in its supply chain
management. The company has implemented unreasonably high standards and
expectation along with causing unhealthy competition among the co-workers
(Kollenscher, Popper and Ronen 2018). The company also has the culture of maintaining