Jeff Bezos Leadership Style

Jeff Bezos Leadership Style: As the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos has managed to grow an empire and run one of the top companies in the world. Bezos currently has a net worth of $110 billion, and for a while, he was the richest man in the world.

Bezos studied physics and computer science at Princeton, but later found his calling on Wall Street. In the late 1990s, he founded Amazon, which was initially an online bookseller, but it later transitioned into a seller for many other goods.

Today, Amazon is a force in eCommerce, cloud computing, logistics, and many other verticals with over 575,000 full-time employees. Amazon partners with carrier and parcel services to deliver goods to addresses.

But what has driven him to become the successful leader he is today? There is plenty of information to help you understand.

Jeff Bezos Leadership Style

Bezos is known to be a transformational and task-oriented leader. In order for Bezos to transform his company, he looked and still searches for ways to become innovative.

He is a leader known for planning and delivering results through creativity. With Bezos’ long-term goals and the public’s needs and wants, a connection is made to help serve customers.

Because of his ability to innovate and envision, he had been able to help his company grow and expand over time.

What Leadership Qualities Does Jeff Bezos Have?

Bezos has written shareholder letters for Amazon every year since 1997. In it, he expresses his philosophies and ideas about how to manage Amazon successfully over the long-term.

In these “Bezos letters”, there are five qualities leadership qualities discussed:

• Firstly, Bezos always takes a long-term look at his goals. Every phase in Amazon’s timeline always involves serving customers, meaning that it will be involved with every vision regardless how big or small it is.
• Then, he says he enhances his line of thinking while making messages simple to the public. Strong communication is the result of deep thinking, and if you cannot explain your message clearly enough, then expect mistakes. Bezos suggests a mental technique such as the Feynman Technique to help you understand a topic better.
• His next quality is that he sticks to laid-out plans and goals in spite of problems and obstacles that may arise. When criticism inevitably comes his way, a clear plan helps to stay the course.
• Next, Bezos stresses that knowing his market is important to him. Any new businesses needs an established market to guarantee that services or products will sell. It is better to have a mediocre product for a huge market than it is to have a good product for no market.
• Finally, Bezos never misses the chance for casual self-promotion. It’s important to always have the chance to promote a company or product, but practicing your delivery is key. Bezos has practiced that pitching must feel natural instead of sales-y to the public.

Is Jeff Bezos A Charismatic Leader?

While Bezos is not considered a spokesman for Amazon, he tries to come off as genuine as possible when promoting his company and services.

His goal when promoting his company is to entice audiences about his company and services, promising that they come with satisfaction and excitement.

In this regard, his charisma is similar to that of Bill Gates; showing joy and enthusiasm so that customers can be assured of his ground-breaking and satisfying products.

What Are The 14 Leadership Principles Of Amazon?

Bezos and Amazon have put together 14 effective principles that each of their employees across the globe must learn. With these principles, he has been able to establish a firm, consumer-friendly culture throughout his company. These principles are as follows:

Customer Obsession

Anyone who takes leadership must start with the customer and work backwards. While competition is key for any industry, customers are Amazon’s highest priority in order to keep them loyal and trusting.

Ownership

Leaders own up to tasks and shortcomings for the good of the company. They think and plan ahead, and do not prioritize short-term results over long-term goals. While they work as part of the team, they never work on their own accord or refuse to take accountability.

Invent and Simplify

Leaders need teams to be creative and innovative, but they do so to be simple rather than complex. Leaders are open to new ideas wherever or whomever they come from. Amazon as a company is always willing to try new concepts and ideas if it means the company can benefit.

Are Right, A Lot

Leaders are known to be right for most of the time. While this seems like a rather arrogant principle, it is crucial for Amazon leaders to both good judgement and instinct. In order to make sound decisions, leaders are willing to let go of personal beliefs and short-sighted perspectives.

Learn and Be Curious

Nobody in life ever finishes learning, and this includes leaders at Amazon.

People in charge at Amazon should always be looking for how to know better and be better. Leaders are always seeking options as well as looking for ways to explore them.

Hire and Develop the Best

Leaders are supposed to hire and promote so that the staff is upgraded as a result.

People with prominent roles at Amazon are supposed to see talent, productivity, and dedication with workers and assign them with positions where they best fit and benefit Amazon.

Leaders are a means to create new leaders who can also coach and teach other people.

Insist on the Highest Standards

Leaders need to have remarkably high standards, even if others believe that they are too high. Leaders should always be looking to outdo themselves when managing their teams and getting tasks done on a day-to-day basis.

They also ensure that fewer mistakes occur so that quality of work and delivery improve across many roles within Amazon.

Think Big

As thinking small is a personal endeavor for leaders, they are meant to direct and communicate with results that Amazon employees can notice.

Leaders think in a different way and look to serve the public in as many ways possible.

Bias For Action

Decision-making in Amazon must always be swift, but also well-informed. A leader’s decisions should be able to be undone if need be and should not require elaborate knowledge or research. The company takes priority in taking risks.

Frugality

Leaders are supposed to work with less, yet accomplish more. Restrictions are what encourage creativity, resourcefulness, and self-sufficiency.

While Amazon is known to be a rapidly-growing company, nothing benefits just by having more employees or more money.

Earn Trust

Leaders listen carefully and speak softly to other employees, all while being respectful. They rely on earning dependability of their constituents. They will also acknowledge their own fault whenever necessary.

Dive Deep

From executives to entry level positions, leaders perform on every level of the company. No matter who is working at Amazon, no task is too small to carry out. Progress is meant to be made in every sector.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

While leaders are supposed to be courteous and open-minded, they should also respectfully disagree with decisions and ideas that they do not deem worthy, even if it requires some effort to do. They do not cave in to underwhelming ideas or proposals for the sake of growing or maintaining relationships.

Deliver Results

Leaders ensure that progress is delivered in a timely manner at the highest quality possible. Even through shortcomings, leaders do not change course or yield and instead stand their ground to get a tough job done.

It’s no secret that Amazon has been able to grow due to a great service and countless opportunities to contribute, tied together by a firm and successful leadership from Jeff Bezos.

---

The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.