La Trobe University MGT3LWM: Leadership Essay on Jeff Bezos

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Jeff Bezos's leadership style, examining his impact on the success of Amazon and other ventures. The essay identifies his leadership as a blend of transformational, task-oriented, and transactional approaches, emphasizing high performance and efficient task achievement. It explores the challenges Bezos faces, including communication barriers and concerns about employee treatment, and discusses how he has addressed these issues. The essay suggests improvements for his leadership approach, such as fostering better communication and empowering employees, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of effective leadership that balances consumer focus with employee well-being. The analysis draws on academic literature to support its arguments and offers valuable insights into the complexities of entrepreneurial leadership.

Assignment (number; and title here)
Submitted by
(Student Name & ID - here)
MGT3LWM
LEADERSHIP
(Instructor’s Name - here)
(Workshop here)
Date (here)
Word Count 1,557
School of Business
College of Arts, Social Science & Commerce
La Trobe University
Bundoora, Victoria, 3086
Australia
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Table of Contents
Introduction (main questions) …………………………………………………………….3
Body content………………………………………………………………………………4
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………....8
References…………………………………………………………………………………9
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INTRODUCTION
Leadership is one of the most impactful attributes of successful entrepreneurship
anywhere in the world. There are many approaches to leadership, which decide what type of
relation an entrepreneur wants to create with his/her employees and what the long term goals
of the business are (Roomi & Harrison, 2011). This assessment will go through a review of
how one of the world’s top entrepreneurs inculcate leadership skills in defining their brands
to reach new heights, what challenges he/she faces and how they are tackled along with
suggestions for better handling of the situation in terms of future gains.
The chosen entrepreneur for this research will be Jeff Bezos, who is the brains behind
the world’s largest E-Commerce empire, Amazon.com. He is also the founder of Blue Origin,
a company with a vision to make space travel affordable for people. The reason for choosing
him is his visionary approach towards leadership and consumer satisfaction, which is the
reason why his brands are able to innovate and maintain targets. This style of leadership can
also be classified as a mix of Transformational, Task-oriented and Transactional.
Like many other entrepreneurs, Bezos has been encountering challenges when it
comes to efficient leadership. The most evident issues faced by Jeff Bezos during his time as
an entrepreneur are mistreatment of employees, limited freedom of speech and in-acceptance
of human limitation of employees which results in him being labelled as a somewhat
unsympathetic leader. Further discussion will reveal how he tackles such challenges and what
else can be done in order to make his leadership style more efficient.
BODY CONTENT
LEADERSHIP AS AN ENTREPRENEURIAL RECIPE FOR SUCCESS:
In a language, people can understand easily. Leadership is the skill a person has to
convey his message to the audience effectively and to get the results that he wants through
that communication (Summerfield, 2014). Without efficient leadership and communication,
one cannot become a successful entrepreneur. To lead a team towards success, one must be
brave and intelligent enough to take a stand and demand response in such a manner that the
members of the team or the employees consider it their own.
COMMON LEADERSHIP STYLES
Leadership comes in all sorts of attributes and qualities, each having their own benefits
and drawbacks. Some of the most common leadership styles that entrepreneurs today look
forward to using are as follows;
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1. Visionary Leadership, where the leader inspires employees and creates strong
organisational bonds for long term achievements.
2. Hands-off Leadership or the Lassiez Faire Leadership, where the leader does not
believe in micro-managing employees.
3. Transformational Leadership, where the leader focuses on clear communication and
goal-setting.
4. Transactional Leadership, where the leader is laser-focused on performance rather than
creativity.
5. Task-Oriented Leadership, where the leader’s priority is always task achievement and
high performance.
6. Autocratic Leadership, where the leaders can be best described as military commanders
who are entirely focused on efficiency and performance.
JEFF BEZOS AND HIS SUCCESS STORY
Jeff Bezos is the ambitious and hardworking brains behind the E-Commerce giant
Amazon.com and many other brands that occupy his business empire. He was born in New
Mexico on January 1st, 1964. Jeff had a knack for mechanics and displayed remarkable talent
in that field since a young age. He started his first business at school where he had his
participants read a variety of books. He excelled at studies and was fond of computers. Even
though he first aimed for studying physics, he eventually settled at computer studies relating
to his love for computers.
Realising the growing internet market, he founded Amazon which was an online
bookstore. Inspiration, hard work and new ideas helped Bezos build his small online store
into an E-commerce marvel. He now has a vision of making space travel affordable and
within reach of the common people through Blue Origin. Jeff Bezos's recipe for success had a
huge chunk of consumer satisfaction and goal-driven planning alongside tactical leadership.
He carefully places targets and acquires them through efficient work to stay on top of the
global market.
LEADERSHIP STYLE OF JEFF BEZOS
Jeff Bezos has a leadership style that is solely focused on high performance and
efficient task achievement and one that does not prioritise employee management and
satisfaction at all times. It can be best explained as a blend of Transformational, Task-
Oriented and Transactional and at times can also be portrayed as Autocratic because of the
Task-focused nature (Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011). Bezos solely believes in providing the best
for his customers, because of which his long and short term goals are clearly defined.
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Under his leadership, Amazon has achieved many milestones in the industry and
success in terms of revenue, sales and the analysis of stock prices. He puts emphasis on
getting the job done at all costs (Horng & Loeb, 2010). This is an extraordinary recipe for
success as it gives him a clear vision of what he wants to do and where he wants his company
to be. He links his company’s long term goals to that of the people and that make him a
visionary leader as well, one who knows what he wants from the employees.
Various studies prove that this amalgam of leadership styles results in profitable
numbers and an overall positive consumer ranking of the company (Morgeson, DeRue &
Karam, 2010). He is the type of a leader that does not give employees the freedom to voice
their opinions and give ideas, and there are many pieces of evidence of this theory as
described by the ex-employees of his company.
LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES FACED BY JEFF BEZOS& THEIR MANAGEMENT
Even with an overall high company standing, profitable business and positive company
image along with strong consumer base, there are a few challenges that Bezos faces which
may hinder the progress of Amazon.com in the long run. These challenges can be listed as
follows;
1. Communication Barriers: -Bezos did not believe in taking suggestions or ideas of the
employees into consideration as he did not take them to be important enough to influence
the actions of the company.The main targets were shown and demanded to be fulfilled,
instead of reaching out to the employees and having them work under a better
environment through motivation.
2. Unsympathetic leadership: - Basic principles of any effective leadership style demand
that employees be given respect, freedom of expression and be treated as humans instead
of machines (Yip, Ernst & Campbell, 2011). At times the company principles came under
backlash as Jeff Bezos did not take employee satisfaction into consideration. Ex-
employees of the firm revealed that it was stressing and somewhat disappointing working
for Amazon.com as their basic rights was neglected, the working conditions of the
company were not up to the standards that are set by law and that there was a lack of
proper HR principles such as leave management.
The counter-actions that Benson has taken to tackle these issues include the increase
in employee independence. They are motivated to share their ideas to give them confidence
and keep them invested in the business. The second most important remedial action taken
was to learn from failures instead of running from them.
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He learned from the harsh experience when he tried to introduce a new product in the
market under his name, but it could not succeed. This made him focus on eliminating his
weaknesses. His business also looks after and pays more attention to employees by promoting
them on different levels to ensure they keep on bringing new ideas that aim for company
success.
SUGGESTIONS TO FURTHER IMPROVE THE LEADERSHIP STYLE
To any leader, it is evident that without a functional and willing team there would be no
success and profit. After researching the many attributes of leadership, the following
suggestions can ensure healthier entrepreneurial success;
1. Sharing knowledge with employees ensures they are better skilled and motivated at what
they do to contribute towards company success and goals.
2. Leadership should not only be limited to the boss. Every employee should consider
himself a leader in their own field and position (Draft, 2014). They should lead when it
comes to making rational decisions that help the image and profit of the company.
3. Entrepreneurial leadership should be taught as subjects to promote efficient leadership
culture through which people can identify what suits them best and what styles to
combine in different ratios to finally create their own recipe for success (Kempster &
Cope, 2010).
4. Leadership should not be limited to a single style. Entrepreneurs should be the judge of
the situation themselves to know what styles would suit the goals and policies of the
company better (Rabin, 2014).
5. A successful leader will always be an efficient communicator who would flawlessly
convey the message to employees in such a manner that they would understand and feel
motivated to perform their tasks altogether (De Vries et al., 2010).
CONCLUSION
The essence of this research is the importance of effective leadership that incorporates
both communication and sympathy for the employees of the company. The higher employee
company association rate, the more successful a company will be in the long run. Focusing
on providing only the best to the consumers is a goal all businesses strive for but not all take
care of the employees that are valuable assets of the company. This research helped me to
learn some basic leadership challenges through the real-life experiences of world's top
entrepreneur and E-Commerce pioneer Jeff Bezos, who discovers and manages those
challenges to portray and put into effect an even stronger leadership style than before.
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REFERENCES
Cunliffe, A.L. and Eriksen, M., 2011. Relational leadership. Human relations, Vol. 64(11),
pp.1425-1449.
Daft, R.L., 2014. The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
De Vries, R.E., Bakker-Pieper, A. and Oostenveld, W., 2010. Leadership= communication?
The relations of leaders’ communication styles with leadership styles, knowledge sharing and
leadership outcomes. Journal of business and psychology, Vol. 25(3), pp.367-380.
Horng, E. and Loeb, S., 2010. New thinking about instructional leadership. Phi Delta
Kappan, Vol. 92(3), pp.66-69.
Kempster, S. and Cope, J., 2010. Learning to lead in the entrepreneurial
context. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 16(1), pp.5-34.
Morgeson, F.P., DeRue, D.S. and Karam, E.P., 2010. Leadership in teams: A functional
approach to understanding leadership structures and processes. Journal of management, Vol.
36(1), pp.5-39.
Rabin, R., 2014. Blended learning for leadership: The CCL approach. Center for Creative
Leadership.www. ccl. org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BlendedLearningLeadership.pdf.
Roomi, M.A. and Harrison, P., 2011. Entrepreneurial leadership: what is it and how should it
be taught? International Review of Entrepreneurship.
Summerfield, M.R., 2014. Leadership: A simple definition. American Journal of Health-
System Pharmacy, Vol. 71(3), pp.251-253.
Yip, J., Ernst, C. and Campbell, M., 2011. Boundary spanning leadership. Center for
Creative Leadership.
Yukl, G., 2012. Effective leadership behaviour: What we know and what questions need
more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 26(4), pp.66-85.
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