Analysis of Leadership and Management Styles at Amazon

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MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROLE OF LEADERS AND FUNCTIONS OF MANAGER........3
THERE ARE BASIC CATEGORY OF LEADERSHIP STYLE...............................................4
DRUKER’S THEORY OF MANAGEMENT- MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVE................4
ROLE OF MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP AT AMAZONE.........................................4
EVALUATION OF ROLE OF LEADER AND FUNCTIONS OF MANAGER AT AMAZON
......................................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Management and Operations is careful management of the process of manufacturing and
allocation of products and services known as operations management. It includes the whole
process that is the creation of product, development, production and the distribution in the
market. All these major activities include purchase management, inventory control, quality
control, storage, transportation and assessment of processes. Operation management mainly
focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Thus, analysis of internal process and
measurement are often done by operations management. Basically, it depends on an organization
that how it is carrying out the operations management in the firm which is directly influenced by
the nature of product and services they are dealing in the organization some examples-
manufacturing, retailing, agricultural product, wholesale, etc.
A leader is a person who worked to achieve a particular goal or objective and also influence the
mass of people who follow him. A leader is a person who motivates and inspires his followers to
chase their vision. Leader makes the people capable by strategizing how to achieve the goal and
possess all the leadership qualities into the followers such as innovation, creating trust among the
stakeholders, motivating juniors, creating and working in the team, etc.
A manager is a person who is responsible to manage whole organizational activities such as
planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling. Manager are the ones who make
the employees work and get the work done in several ways, managers have the authority to
recruit or dismiss the employees from the organization. Managers are classified in many ways
such as top-level manager, functional managers, general managers, project managers, etc.
A manager is a person who holds only a management position whereas, a leader is a person who
influences his followers as well as connected to a management position. All five major functions
are performed by the manager that are planning, organizing, leading, controlling and
coordinating therefore we can assume that managers are also the leader who leads the activities
but it does not mean all the managers are the leader, only managers who perform some additional
tasks such as motivating, inspiring, encouraging, influencing and many more (Stanley, 2006).
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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROLE OF LEADERS AND FUNCTIONS OF
MANAGER
1. A manager is a person who manages the whole organization whereas the leader is a
person who strongly influences the followers to achieve a particular goal.
2. Leader transfers the quality of cautiousness on the other hand manger has the mental
capabilities to get the work done from others (Stanley, 2006).
3. Directions are showed by leaders but the detailed planning is done by the manager.
4. Decisions are taken by the managers whereas the leader makes it easier to implement.
5. Managers have the employees under them while the leader has the followers.
6. Conflicts are used as an asset by the leader whereas the manager avoids the conflicts as
much as possible.
7. Managers are reactive to the changes whereas the changes are promoted by the leaders.
8. People are organized by the manager whereas leader aligned the people (Cheverie, 2016).
9. The focus of leaders is on people whereas the focus of managers is on the process and
procedure of the work.
10. Leader used the transformational leadership style on the other hand the manager uses
transactional leadership style.
11. Leader and manager both strive for doing the right things.
12. The manager has the focus to give the end results whereas the leader aims at the growth
of the people working under him.
THERE ARE BASIC CATEGORY OF LEADERSHIP STYLE
1. Autocratic or authoritarian leadership
2. Paternalistic leadership
3. Democratic leadership
4. Theory X and Y (Haibo et al., 2008)
DRUKER’S THEORY OF MANAGEMENT- MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVE
 To identify the target achievements with the help of subordinates.
 Support should be negotiated to achieve the required target.
 Extension of overtime should be evaluated to meet the objectives.
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ROLE OF MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP AT AMAZONE
For healthy and sustainable organization leadership is very important. To move the organization
forward it is necessary to determine the steps and important action by the leader’s ability
(Gumbo and T., 2017). The leadership of the organization can provide the insight that why some
organization suffers from the organizational problem and why some do not. Here we will discuss
the Jeff Bezos leadership style who is the founder and CEO of Amazon. Leadership style is the
reason for the wellbeing of this company (About amazon, 2019).
TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP-
Jeff Bezos is a transactional leader because he is task oriented. With rigorous standard Bezos
work as a micromanager sometimes who is less interested in the public opinion, which is known
as transactional leadership. Transactional leadership is very influensive as it makes the
subordinates work according to the leader’s wants and direction. To achieve operational goals
and objectives transactional leadership is very effective in this cutthroat global competition
(About amazon, 2019).
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP-
Bezos has all the qualities of a transactional leader who always search for new and innovative
changes in the Amazon. Whereas Creativity and extraordinary results are produced by the
transformational leadership style, they are well known for creativity and generating a captivating
vision for the future. Which aims to win the hearts and the minds of people. Amazon has
successfully connected the people values with the long-term goals of the company. To perform
on the vision transformational leader creates the interest and commitment in their team to
perform beyond the efforts and cross the high grade by extraordinary performance in this field.
And it is clearly visible through the performance of amazon.com which is giving positive
financial return to the company through its ability, innovation, and inspiration and envisions, on
the other hand, their investor and competitors still don't believe on his successful creation.
WORKING ENVIRONMENT OF AMAZONE
Amazon is ranked as the most inflexible and stressful functioning environment in the complex
world of high-tech. amazon has a very stressful working environment because of this Amazon
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has the second highest employee turnover. Workers of Amazon have confessed that Bezos also
criticize them for their work as well as he is very dogmatic. Therefore workers of Amazon are
not really happy with the working environment of Amazon because of the Bezos transactional
leadership style that is highly opinioned (About amazon, 2019).
GROWTH OF THE AMAZONE
Amazon is showing a sign of positive growth with valuable shares. Shares of Amazon are
upgraded year by year by the city bank. Consultants have strong beliefs that Amazon will show
positive progress in the future because the share of the Amazon are upgraded and always shown
at the top line rather than the bottom line.
There is a rise in the customer of Amazon as well as in prime membership. Which resulted in
25% of increment in the sales despite increased prices as millions of new Prime members have
joined the Amazon. It can be said that this growth is because of the leadership of the Bezos who
is highly focused towards the growth of the company's revenue and customer base. Despite
growth in revenue and customers, it has been noted that the company is also suffering from loss
from years. Analysis has declared that Bezos leadership style is connected to all things growing
in consumer, both loss and revenue in the business.
EVALUATION OF ROLE OF LEADER AND FUNCTIONS OF MANAGER AT
AMAZON
From the last two decades, it has been noted that because of the transformational style of
leadership of Bezos has resulted in the growth in the company. Because of Bezos vision, offline
retailers are also challenged by him as Amazon has online book stores as well as online retail
stores which is giving a challenge to every offline retailer. This success has been possible only
because of Bezos commitment and focuses on the vision. Bezos has indeed desire to create
innovation and new changes through his leadership style in order to achieve massive success in
terms of revenue, incresead sales and loyal customer. On the other hand, Bezos transactional
leadership style has resulted in creating a stressful and pessimistic environment for the
employees which is resisting the employee to work with passion. This will be continuing if the
Bezos continue with the transactional leadership (About Amazon, 2019). Thus it can be said that
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Bezos need to work very hard to grow at a faster rate in order to expand the Amazon more
reasonably.
CONCLUSION
Jeff Bezos is following both the leadership style in the Amazon transactional and
transformational as he is task oriented. In terms of revenue, his leadership style has resulted in a
huge success of Amazon. After the analysis, it can be said that they are lacking in sales due to a
stressful working environment. Bezos must slow down his work on transformational elements;
he must focus on revenue generation rather than expansion. And it will be great if Bezos
transactional qualities will convert to motivate the employees and make the working
environment more flexible and friendlier for the employees.
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REFERENCES
 About amazon, 2019. Online available at https://www.aboutamazon.com/ last accessed
on 6 march 2019.
 Gumbo, T., 2017. UNPACKING THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMNT
STYLES IN TEACHING AND RESEARCH OUTPUT IN SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHER
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 Importance of leadership, 2015. Online available at
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https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/3/managers-and-leaders-are-they-the-same-or-
different last accessed on 6 march 2019.
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 Turner, J.R. and Müller, R., 2005. The project manager's leadership style as a success
factor on projects: A literature review. Project management journal, 36(2), pp.49-61.
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