Introduction
One of the most renowned leaders of the 21st century is Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon Inc. Bezos stands as one of the most famous leaders due to his leadership skills, traits, and behaviors that he has consistently exhibited over the years, specifically during his time in Amazon. Under his leadership, Amazon has exponentially grown from a garage start-up to become the world’s largest online retailer and the most valuable brand worldwide. This paper will explore Bezos’ approach to leadership to identify leadership theory that best describes him as well as his view and contribution towards innovation.
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Which Leadership Theory best Describes Jeff Bezos?
The leadership model that best describes Bezos is transformational leadership. A transformational leader encourages, motivates, and inspires employees to innovate and create change geared towards facilitating growth and shaping the future success of an organization. Such a leader achieves desired outcomes by setting an example through a strong sense of organizational culture, encouraging employees to take ownership, and promoting independence in the workplace (Sata & Kelly, 2016). Therefore, transformational leaders like Bezos inspire and motivate their team without micromanaging. The approach gives employees more room and freedom to be creative and innovative; thus, finding new solutions to arising problems (Grădinaru, Toma, & AndriÈ, 2020). According to Sata and Kelly (2016), transformational leadership relies on charisma to derive a form of social authority, whereby their legitimacy stems from their behavior and character rather than their formal position. Comparably, as shown below, Bezos’ leadership skills, traits, and behaviors align with transformational leadership theory.
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Jeff Bezos’ Leadership Skills
As a leader, Bezos has displays excellent communication skills. He has demonstrated these skills by motivating and inspiring his team to share his vision and dedicate their time and effort towards actualizing it. Grădinaru, Toma, and AndriÈ (2020) explain that leaders who utilize transformational leadership must have good communication skills since their effectiveness relies on their ability to inspire and motivate others. Another key leadership that Bezos acquires is the ability to influence others. Taylor (2018) defines influence skills as having a superior ability to induce a change of behavior, attitude, thoughts, and mastery to accommodate proponents’ wishes. Notably, Bezos founded Amazon in 1995, in the garage of his rented home. Less than two decades late, the corporation has grown into the most valuable brand and has more than 750,000 employees. Bezos has achieved this by influencing others to share his vision, principles, values, and process (Grădinaru, Toma, & AndriÈ, 2020). The accomplishment demonstrates Bezos’ superior communication skills coupled with the ability to influence, inspire, and motivate.
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Jeff Bezos’ Leadership Behaviors
The leadership behavior that distinctively exhibits Bezos’ subscription to transformational leadership is idealized influence and inspirational motivation. According to Taylor (2018), idealized influence refers to how individuals exhibit their influence within a group. As a leader, Bezos is highly respected by his employees and by his peers in the corporate realm. Moreover, he is charismatic and, as such, provides a great sense of belonging. This influences others to share his vision and believe in him as a leader. Bezos’ charisma coupled with his ability to provide inspirational motivation renders him a powerful force of influence on people that he leads as well as those who idolize him as a role model. As an inspirational motivator, Bezos is actively invested in improving his employees’ performance and enhancing their morale to strive towards innovation and creativity. He uses both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators to motivate his team to move in the direction that he deems best for the organization (Grădinaru, Toma, & AndriÈ, 2020). The behaviors allow Bezos to stand out as a catalyst for change.
Jeff Bezos’ Leadership Traits
Many distinctive traits define Bezos’ leadership style. However, the two most distinctive are purposefulness and inclusiveness. As a transformational leader, Bezos is inclusive of other people’s diverse viewpoints and identities. This is well exhibited by Amazon as an employer. The organization appreciate people’s differences and acknowledge that their uniqueness is what renders them more valuable. Bezos is also an adamant advocate of equality and fairness, whereby he strongly believes that any person matters and can make a difference. The trait allows him to build meaningful relations and excel in developing talents through inspiring confidence and encouraging employees to grow and develop. Regarding his purposefulness, throughout his leadership tenure at Amazon, Bezos has consistently demonstrated his commitment to goals and actualizing visions in a manner that is both hopeful and optimistic. Bezos inspires a sense of purpose in his employees while at the time encouraging autonomy so that a culture of innovation and creativity pervades around him (Sata & Kelly, 2016). Nonetheless, he conveys the inspirational, motivational messages with clarity and authority.
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Jeff Bezos Leadership Style
Based on the above-described leadership behaviors, traits, and skills, Bezos’ approach to leadership inclines towards the transformational leadership style. Notably, transformational leaders emphasize motivating and empowering their followers to innovate and create change. They also encourage employees to grow and develop by promoting autonomy and including their followers in the decision-making process. Transformational leaders figure out what motivates each employee and utilize the knowledge to ensure they grow and develop (Sata & Kelly, 2016). Additionally, a transformational leader also influences his/her followers to adopt an established set of values, beliefs, and principles. Moreover, they are keen on establishing and maintaining robust relationships with their followers. Through establishing these relationships and using their charisma, transformational leaders inspire and motivate others to share their vision and commit to innovation and creativity (Grădinaru, Toma, & AndriÈ, 2020). Indeed, the qualities associated with transformational leadership form the foundation undergirding Bezos’ approach to leadership.
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Bezos’ transformational leadership style has proven to be remarkably effective in driving success. It has helped Bezos grow and develop Amazon from a garage start-up to one of the largest multinational corporations. Arguably, the style has been successful for Bezos and Amazon due to emphasis on inclusiveness, empowerment, purposefulness, and allowing employees the freedom to be innovative and creative. Also, by being process-oriented and ethical-driven, Bezos has been able to inspire and motivate his employees as well as partners to share his vision and goals. Consequently, they have dedicated their time and efforts towards achieving desired results. According to Taylor (2018), an effective transformational leader influences others to share his/her vision, inspires action, and provokes followers to think outside the box leading to innovation and creativity. Bezos has successfully implemented these principles hence his tremendous success as a leader.
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Jeff Bezos Contribution to Innovation
One of the defining qualities of transformational leadership is the emphasis on creativity and innovation. The quality allows them to change processes and innovate products by thinking creatively to envision solutions and involve others in the vision-building process. As a result, innovation pervades transformational leaders (Taylor, 2018). Bezos is considered one of the most innovative modern-day leaders. He has pioneered many innovative processes and products. For instance, his most famous innovation is a client-centered approach to customer service.
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Amazon designed an algorithm that analyzes customers’ previous buying patterns to predict what they might shop next. In an era when most businesses focused on maintaining a competitive advantage through using traditional strategies such as differentiation and cost leadership. Bezos came up with a new approach that emphasized investing in customer relations by leveraging information technology. Moreover, under his leadership, Bezos insists that Amazon must continue experimenting and innovating. Bezos understands that not all new ideas will become successful but encourages his employees to view failures as learning opportunities (Grădinaru, Toma, & AndriÈ, 2020). This philosophy motivates Amazon employees to try new creative things without the fear of failure.
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Conclusion
Jeff Bezos is a transformational leader who has successfully utilized the approach to grow and develop one of the world’s largest multinational corporations. He has consistently demonstrated skills, behaviors, and traits that align with transformational leadership. His leadership approach helped him achieve massive success, mainly as the founder and CEO of Amazon Inc. It has also allowed him to foster an innovative mindset at Amazon, helping the organization establish itself as one of the most respected innovative companies globally.
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