Case Study: Evaluating Leadership Styles of Jeff Bezos at Amazon

This case study examines the leadership of Jeff Bezos at Amazon, exploring various leadership styles and theories. It begins with an introduction to leadership and its importance in business, followed by an analysis of different leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire, with a focus on the democratic style favored by Bezos. The main body delves into leadership theories such as transformational, trait, behavioral, situational, contingency, transactional, distributed, and ethical leadership, along with their criticisms. The study suggests that Bezos could benefit from combining transactional and ethical leadership styles to enhance Amazon's performance while adhering to business ethics. The report concludes by summarizing the complexities of leadership and management within Amazon, highlighting the importance of adapting leadership styles to achieve organizational goals. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools for students, providing valuable insights into leadership practices through real-world case studies.

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
CASE STUDY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Leadership Style.......................................................................................................................3
2.Leadership theories with critics................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is the art of motivating and inspire to employees and a group of people in business
and management. It helps to encourage employees and help them to give their 100% in work.
This report will evaluate the complexity in leadership and managing people in organization. It
also explains briefly the given case study of Jeff Bezos which is the richest man in the world and
CEO of Amazon. Amazon is an e-commerce website which is the largest online store in the
world. This report also present different leadership styles and in the end it recommends the best
leadership style to Jeff Bezos.
MAIN BODY
Leadership:
Leadership is a mode by which companies can achieve their objective which means it is a
technique under which the whole actions are directed towards the set vision which would be the
company's goal. Under leadership directions are set by the leaders upon which all the employees
or followers have to walk and move towards the company's goal. Since it includes setting up of
directions but a good leader also uses a set of management tools to direct its employees or
followers (Hughes, 2018). Under this concept leaders usually set a vision as per company's goal.
After making of vision leader inculcate or connect the employees with that vision so that the
process of achieving the vision will begin. Lastly after connecting the employees, leader apply
his leadership style over the employees and accordingly guides them or influence them so that
better outcome will come and the goal of the company's will be achieved with the full
involvement of employees.
1. Leadership Style
There are basically three types of leadership style such as Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez-
faire leadership style.
Autocratic Style: If this leadership style Jeff Bezos follow than it make all decisions
independently for Amazon without consulting with employees.
Democratic Style: If Jeff Bezos follow this style than it encourage employees and its followers to
take participate in decision making for Amazon.
Laissez Faire Style: If Amazon adopt this style than employees of Amazon are free to take
decisions according to their needs.

Basically Jeff Bezos follow democratic leadership style so that they encourage employees to take
participate in company decision for company's growth and betterment.
2.Leadership theories with critics
Transformational theory:
There are various theories of leadership but apart from that the transformational
leadership theory is usually followed by Jeff Bezos. According to this theory, the changing needs
are first identified and then accordingly the vision meeting such changes is framed by the leader.
After framing the vision the leader guides and inspires the employees to work as per the vision
so that not only the changing needs but the performance of the company also improves (Buil,
Martínez and Matute, 2019). This theory usually focus on bringing innovation to meet the
changing situations.
Jeff Bezos also follows this leadership theory and it is due to the outcome of following of
this theory, he achieved such a level of great success which is also reflecting in the success of
Amazon. By following this theory only amazon identify the required needs and changes which
could arise due to Covid and converting those needs and changes into an opportunities and
bringing innovation in working, Amazon and the prices of its shares have rose at such a great
extent.
Except from this theory there are various other theories of leadership which Jeff Bezos could
apply on Amazon and may achieve even more success and better results. Those theories include:
Trait theory:
According to this theory leadership can't be learned and adopted by an individual. In-fact
leadership is a quality which is present in the person right from the birth which means it is
considered as an inherent trait of an individual (Northouse, 2018). This theory focus on the
principle that leaders are not possible to made, they are born which means this quality comes
from the birth of an individual.
If Jeff Bezos implement this theory then he may better shine as a leader and may earn
more achievement in comparison of transformational leadership. But on the other hand as trait
theory more focus becoming a great leader it somewhat less focus on situation and the situational
requirement.

Thus, in the changing situation of Covid and its requirement Jeff Bezos may not been
able to meet the situation by following trait theory and this may also lead to decrease in its
performance in comparison of the current level of performance which may also ultimately affects
Amazon in terms of decrease in the values of its shares.
Behavioural theory:
This theory focus on behaviour rather than trait which means this theory said that leaders
are not fully successful from birth which means their success based on the adoption of behaviour
of other good leader rather than possessing its own trait and carrying it out (Verawati and
Hartono, 2020).
Following of this theory by Jeff Bezos would give better results than trait theory because
by following this theory Jeff Bezos will not only implement the advantages of inherent traits
which means in addition of present trait the advantage of other learned traits can also be
implemented which will duly raise the level of performance of Amazon.
However, learning the trait is not enough its proper and adequate implementation is also
very necessary and that may also become a strong reason for the failure of this leadership theory
which could result in non achievement of targeted objectives and performance by Jeff Bezos and
Amazon.
Situational theory:
According to this theory there is no single or universally applicable theory of leadership
which could apply in every situation which means that applicability of the leadership theory
totally depends upon the situation and its requirement (Walls, 2019).
This could also prove to be very beneficial theory for Jeff Bezos to adopt and implement
on Amazon because by using this theory the situational aspect can be easily meet by the
company and accordingly better results would be grabbed. By meeting the requirement of the
current situation and grabbing the advantages of the current situation Jeff Bezos could achieve
more success in comparison of the above theories.
However, it would also produce adverse outcomes in case where the leader is not multi
talented who have expertise in every theory. Also, this theory more focus on current situation
rather than future situation and goals. Thus, on the one hand it can be the best but on the other
hand adoption of situational theory by Jeff Bezos may turn out to be adverse and produce
opposite outcomes for Amazon.

Contingency theory:
According to this theory the success and efficiency of the leader is totally depends upon
the implementation of the leadership theory in the specific situation and in turns if that theory
would produce the desired or expected results which means fits the best (Fiedler, 2018). Thus,
this theory also follows the concept that there is no best theory which could be applied
everywhere.
Like the situational theory adoption of this theory by Jeff Bezos would also work in
favour which means by adopting this theory Jeff Bezos can achieve more success because of
grabbing the advantages of the dynamic situations while on the other hand its practical
implication is much hard in comparison of suggestion which means it is very hard to understand
the complex situation and adoption of appropriate theory matching to such situation. This means
that a small mistake in analysing may negatively affect the performance of Amazon which in
turn directly affect the Jeff Bezos and its success.
Transactional theory:
This theory is the combination of leadership styles and management practice by which
employees will be guided and influenced by the leader. As per this theory employees are guided
and influenced by the leaders by motivating them and fulfilling their interest (Sanda and Arthur,
2017). For this leader uses a specific framework of management practices and guidelines by
which employees are guided towards company's goal.
Adoption of this theory by Jeff Bezos and implementing on Amazon may help the
company not just in motivating the employees but also improve the performance and
productivity level at every scale of working (Harrison, 2018). Applicability of this theory by
Amazon can also help it in reducing the cost of operation and thus increasing profit percentages.
Thus, this theory can more raise the outcomes of Jeff Bezos which he got in transformational
leadership.But at the same phase applicability of this theory by Jeff Bezos may also lead to
depletion of innovation in the functioning of the company. Also, due to more focus on followers
it reduces the numbers of leader which in turn negatively affect the performance of the Amzon
and Jeff Bezos.
Distributed leadership theory:
This is one of the recent and effective theory of leadership where instead of concentrating
the power in the hand of individual or leader it is distributed among the employees based on their

expertise and excellence and knowledge. This theory focus on retaining of power in the hands of
employees matching to their roles and responsibility (Cannatelli, 2017).
Since this theory focus on distribution of power among employees and taking of decision
accordingly helps the company to make its decision-making process faster with more efficiency
due to closely observance of the situation facer. Also, this theory create the quality of
accountability among the employees which make them more responsible and accordingly
adopting and implementing this theory by Jeff Bezos on Amazon helps the company to achieve a
great success and the level of performance of the company as well as Jeff Bezos will also raise to
the next level by inculcating this theory into practice.
However, adoption of this theory by Jeff Bezos may also affect, in terms of negative
performance which means it may become very difficult to create accountability among the
employees. Also, sometimes this theory also create the situation of uncertainty which may also
affect the functioning of Amazon and as a result the outcomes for Jeff Bezos and Amazon will
lower down.
Ethical Leadership Style: It is defined as a leadership which respect ethical beliefs and values.
Ethical leader see their followers and employees as stakeholder and value their opinion and
ideas. Ethical leader follow social learnings and also they are following ethical characteristics
(Ko, 2018). If Jeff Bezos apply ethical leadership for Amazon then it will be beneficial for both
the company and the employees. Ethical leadership give positive outcomes such as pro-social
behaviour with employees, productive behaviour of employees, positive attitudes of both
employees and leaders and it helps in ethical decisions of followers.
Ethical leadership qualities which help Jeff Bezos for effective work such as Transformation
leadership quality it helps employees and leader to work together for collective purpose,
Authentic leadership quality helps to build an ethical foundation, Spiritual leadership quality
which help to employees as well as leaders to stay motivated and faithful towards their work.
Theories of ethical leadership help Jeff Bezos for different areas such as early stage
development, focus on leaders value etc. In Amazon there will be some issues with ethical
leadership just because Amazon deal globally and in different countries there are different
cultures and ethics so ethical leadership may face some issues in Amazon.

From the above mentioned theories it would be suggested that Jeff Bezos instead of applying and
using the transformational leadership theory may adopt and apply the transactional leadership in
collaboration with ethical leadership theory on Amazon by which much better and efficient
outcomes will be produced by the company in complimentary with the abidance of business
ethics which will not only raise the performance and image of the company but the level of
performance and success of Jeff Bezos will also improvise (Sarwar, 2020).
CONCLUSION
This report evaluates the complexity of the leadership and management of the people in the
Amazon. This report also presented different leadership styles such as Transnational leadership
theory, Distributed leadership theory, Ethical leadership theory etc. In the end of the report it
recommended to Jeff Bezos the best leadership theory for the Amazon.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Buil, I., Martínez, E. and Matute, J., 2019. Transformational leadership and employee
performance: The role of identification, engagement and proactive
personality. International Journal of Hospitality Management.77. pp.64-75.
Cannatelli, and et.al., 2017. An expanded model of distributed leadership in organizational
knowledge creation. Long Range Planning.50(5). pp.582-602.
Fiedler, F., 2018. Contingency Model.
Harrison, C., 2018. Leadership research and theory. In Leadership Theory and Research (pp. 15-
32). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Hughes, and et.al., 2018. Leadership, creativity, and innovation: A critical review and practical
recommendations. The Leadership Quarterly.29(5). pp.549-569.
Ko, C., and et.al., 2018. Ethical leadership: An integrative review and future research agenda.
Ethics & Behavior. 28(2). pp.104-132.
Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Sanda, A. and Arthur, N.A.D., 2017. Relational impact of authentic and transactional leadership
styles on employee creativity. African Journal of Economic and Management Studies.
Sarwar, H., and et.al., 2020. Ethical leadership, work engagement, employees’ well-being, and
performance: a cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 28(12).
pp.2008-2026.
Verawati, D.M. and Hartono, B., 2020. Effective Leadership: From The Perspective of Trait
Theory and Behavior Theory. Jurnal REKOMEN (Riset Ekonomi Manajemen).4(1).
pp.13-23.
Walls, E., 2019. The value of situational leadership. Community practitioner: the journal of the
Community Practitioners'& Health Visitors' Association.92(2). pp.31-33.
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