Good Essay About Jeff Bezos’ Leadership Approach

Under the conditions of globalisation and multicultural nature of working environment, the traditional approaches to management and leadership begin to seem out-dated and counter-productive in the new socially, politically and culturally cohesive global environment of business conduct. In this regard, various companies begin to adopt new approaches to management and leadership and scholars work on new conceptualisations of management and business processes. The aim of this paper is to analyse leadership style of Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon company, in terms of modern post-heroic theories of leadership. Furthermore, the subject is going to be analysed in terms of three theories: Implicit Leadership Theory (follower-centric perspective), culture-enveloping theory of leadership (culture perspective) and relational theory (critical perspective). The main aspect of analysis is identity dynamics.
Bezos’ leadership style can be summarised as self-centred, unquestionable, demanding intransigent and challenging (Northhouse, 2012, p. 76). Bezos’ leadership is based on his charismatic and uncompromising personality and perception of the world. He believes that his opinion is the only right one, and his principles of leadership should be adopted by his employees across all structures of the organisation. For Bezos, the main priority is customer’s opinion and complete satisfaction, which inevitably results in tough demands to his subordinates and management team (Schein, 2010, p. 86). Thus, from a first glance, it seems that Bezos’ leadership style is closer to autocratic leadership, where no one but the CEO can make decisions and lead the company on the way of its development (Winkler, 2010, p. 37). On the other hand, the following analysis in terms of the chosen theories is going to demonstrate other perspectives and constituent parts of Bezos’ leadership.

Follower-centric perspective: Implicit Leadership Theory

The essence of this theory is the statement that the efficiency of leadership style depends not just on actions of the leader but on how he is perceived by his employees. In this regard, it is argued that good leadership is made of how the leader is perceived by hi employees and the way they process consequent information: “the evaluation and acceptance of a leader in a specific situation is determined by followers’ mind-sets, which consist of assumptions, beliefs and expectations regarding the causes, nature, and the consequences of leadership” (Day, 2014, p. 599). Applying this theory to Bezos’ leadership, it can be argued that his managerial and leadership styles are in fact conditioned by this theory. It does not mean that creates an environment where each employee has a chance to feel like he is contributing or shaping leadership style of CEO. There is nothing participative in Bezos’ leadership style, but it does not mean that he does not use employees’ perception of himself as means of strengthening his authority and improvement of company’s efficiency (Day, 2014, p. 598). In this regard, the image of a demanding but fair leader, who places only customers’ interest above all else is appealing to employees and makes them perceive him as being not just authoritarian but also a perfectionist that knows what is best and who will reward an employee who demonstrates the best project and the most efficient performance. Thus, Bezos’ leadership is aimed at investing in employees’ development making them motivated to perform better and more creatively since that is what he expect from them (Schein, 2010, p. 78).
In terms of identity dynamics, Bezos uses his leadership style as a means of developing the desired self-identification of his employees. Since he poses himself as demanding and perfectionist leader who targets clients first and logistics after, he expects his employees to identify themselves with his expectations, with clients’ needs and responsibilities to customers (Day, 2014, p. 545). In this regard, he has a set of practical tools of imposing responsible employees’ self-identification. First of all, he uses an empty chair at various meetings suggesting that it symbolises customers and then he asks questions on behalf of customers (Schein, 2010, p. 86). This stimulates the employees to feel the common responsibility towards customers and also stimulated their association with the company and what it does. In this regard, another follower-centric technique aimed at stimulating self-identification with the company and its leader was the introduction of Amazon identity promoting leadership responsibility of all employees. In terms of this discourse, Bezos has established a set of 14 leadership principles that are the pillars of Amazon company. These principles are incredibly critical and demanding to leaders, but the focal point of it is who is considered to be a leader in terms of the Amazon context. It is stated:

“Whether you are an individual contributor or the manager of a large team, you are

an Amazon leader. These are our leadership principles, and every Amazonian is
guided by these principles” (Amazon, 2015).
The core of this statement is the realisation that leadership is a shared function that it is the process of interrelated actions for the common target – customers satisfaction, which means that everyone is equally responsible for company’s success or failure (Northhouse, 2012, p. 59). Thus, in terms of implicit leadership theory and identity dynamics, Bezos uses his example and leadership expectations in order to stimulate employees’ self-identification with the company and its leadership style by creating the new Amazonian identity.

Cultural Perspective: Dorfman’s culture-enveloping theory of leadership

This culture theory developed by Dorfman suggests that the national cultural is the determining factor in shaping leadership processes. It is argued that the image and perception of leader’s power, and leader’s relationship with employees are conditioned by the national culture (Northhouse, 2012, p. 55). In terms of power, cultural framework identifies the perception of leader’s influence and power capacities. Placing Bezos’ case into this conceptual discourse, it can be argued that a certain admiration for his leadership talent is largely conditioned by the fact dominance of the American social and business culture of his employees and orientation of the company. In this regard, the acceptance and admiration for his leadership style are due to success-oriented American culture (Day, 2014, p. 538). In other words, so far the company and its CEO are the most prosperous in the environment of severe completion, the personal characteristics of the CEO matter very little, since it is success and survival in severe conditions of corporate competition that is achieved (Schein, 2010, p. 76). This orientation on success in the American culture is often explained by the dominance of the American dream in social culture which stimulated further development of severe success-oriented organisational culture like of Microsoft and Apple, where human approach to leadership was far from being a major one (Northhouse, 2012, p. 39).
In terms of identity dynamics, Bezos uses American success-oriented approach and his demanding techniques in order to build the organisational culture of co-thinkers and supporters who could disseminate his ideas and methods across the company and branches. In this regard, his idea of stimulates his employees to identify themselves not only with the company but with its CEO and the success he has achieved (Day, 2014, p. 535). Thus, through the creation of Amazonian identity and placing leadership at its core, Bezos created a favourable environment to build the identification of employees with his personality and his way of achieving success. In this regard, the American cultural perception of self-identification would be that since an employee works for Amazon, follows its ideology and principles of the CEO, one day this employee would be able to achieve the same success as the CEO (Schein, 2010, p. 64). In this regard, the image of CEO represents the American dream where anyone can achieve almost anything, and Bezos’ leadership style and identity techniques suggest that he provides his employees with an example of how to achieve what they desire the most – personal success and money (Northhouse, 2012, p. 112).
Another aspect of identity dynamics in terms of cultural theory is that Bezos uses symbolical identification of employees with customers, which is aimed at two cultural considerations. Frist of all, unlike in no other business or social culture, American perception of customers rights and demands is the most customer-oriented, where a customer is always right, even if he is wrong (Northhouse, 2012, p. 45). In this regard, placing a customer on top of decision-making, Bezos does not only make his employees think in terms what is best for the customer but also uses this as a final argument that no one can argue with. Consequently, by playing the role of a customer in customer-oriented culture, Bezos stimulates his employees to accept his criticism no matter how severe it may be. Looking on the matter of this theory in a more critical manner it can be argued that Bezos uses it very effectively. However, this theory outlines the impact of a single culture on leadership style and does not place it into global and cross-cultural context. Bezos’ approach in terms of this conceptual frame demonstrates to be functional in the American cultural environment, but it would be less effective in different cultural environments, as in the Western Europe, where more democratic and diversity-oriented cultural specifics prevail. With further stages of globalisation and internationalisation of Amazon, orientation towards American culture would be limiting and counter-productive.

Critical Perspective: Relational leadership theory

The critical theory of relational leadership is the one that corresponds to Bezos’ leadership approach the most accurately. The relationship theory argues that leadership is a shared responsibility conducted by a leader and the inner circle of co-thinkers and supporters of his ideas and way of decision-making. In terms of Bezos’s leadership, he was often criticised for having people following him as his clones who had no personal opinion, in public they were called Jeff-bots (Yukl, 2010, p. 78). From one perspective, the creation of an inner circle is a functional approach to management because it results in gathering people with the similar perspectives on managements and knowledge in the target field (Schein, 2010, p. 87). On the other hand, this can result in alienation of the top management from the practitioners’ perspective on projects. In the case of Bezos, the rationale for developing the inner circle is more practical.
In terms of identity dynamics, he uses his authority and personal leadership skills in order to find people who would correspond to his mind-set and would be able to identify themselves with him, his perception of leadership and company-development. In this regard, Bezos aims at developing leadership and unique working customer-centred atmosphere across his company through placing people identifying themselves with him and his vision on the positions where they disseminate his ideas. Consequently, the main function of the inner circle is to teach other employees his ways so that they could implement them in the branches (Yukl, 2010, p. 76). To a certain extent, it may be assumed that inner circle employees lose their personality and independent thinking, which would result in counter-productive replication of Bezos’ ideas and affirmation of all of his statements. On the other hand, no pragmatic leader would want to receive affirmation to all of his questions, because it would result in stagnation (Day, 2014, p. 556). In this regard, the employees from the inner circle do identify themselves with Bezos, but they tend to preserve their specific expertise and opinions based on their qualifications and background.
Another essential consideration of the inner circle of leadership is its sharing function. In this regard, theory argues that the presence of inner circle assist a leader in his duties and responsibilities because he can rely on these people and their interpersonal relations create the environment for a group decision-making and consultations (Northhouse, 2012, p. 47). In the case of Bezos leadership it is less constructive. From one perspective, Bezos does not use his inner circle in order to share his CEO responsibilities or the burden of decision-making. Although it may seem that the presence of the inner circle and replication of Bezos’ managerial style suggests the lack of difference in opinions and professional expertise, the situation is very much different. The functionality of the inner circle for Bezos is in teaching its members his ways and getting from them their expert opinions irrespective of whether it corresponds to his or not (Yukl, 2010, p. 72). Unlike the core principle of relational theory, which states that the creation of functional relations between a leader and his inner circle team gradually transforms into partnership, in the case of Bezos, the relationship with his inner circle is far from partnership (Winkler, 2010, p. 33).
Overall, it can be concluded that Bezos’ leadership style demonstrates orientation on employing identity dynamics in strengthening his influence on employees’ perception of him and stimulating them to a more efficient performance. His orientation towards American business and social culture proves to be functional and effective, yet might require a more cross-cultural rethinking in further global plans of company’s development. The identity dynamics prove to be even more functional in terms of Bezos’ inner circle of co-thinkers who disseminate his ideas across the company. In terms of the outlined above theories, their applicability is partial due to the complexity of real life elements of leadership conduct, which differ a lot from the theoretical perception of reality.

Reference List

Amazon, 2015. Leadership Principles. [online] Available at:
< http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b?node=239365011>
[Accessed 23 February 2015].
Day, D.V. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations. Oxford: Oxford
Northhouse, P.G. 2012. Leadership: Theory and Practice. London, LD: SAGE.
Schein, E.H. 2010. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley
& Sons.
Winkler, I. 2010. Contemporary leadership Theories: Enhancing the Understanding of the
Complexity, Subjectivity and Dynamic of leadership. New York, NY: Springer.
Yukl, G.A. 2010. Leadership in Organisations. Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education.