When I first looked into investing in the stock market, I looked for companies that I read would have great upside as well as CEO’s that would continue to push the envelope allowing the company to grow. One company that kept coming across my screen was Amazon and the untapped potential it carried. It has been seen as monopolizer, destroyer of small businesses, and a flat out overworking company. These are labels that people affected by their success point out. In this post I’ll look to focus on Jeff Bezos leadership as well as his communication to his company.
One article I found published by Yousuf Rafi outlines 10 leadership tactics that Jeff Bezos uses to run his company successfully. This includes giving his employees independence in their daily tasks. The reasoning steamed from giving room to think and innovate. Jeff Bezos also likes to communicate with his whole company by providing visions that the workers can relate and be a part of. He sets out a lofty goal of being the most consumer centric as well as stating customers are the top priority.
Jeff Bezos stresses how failure is a part of leadership. Learning from mistakes is what makes a great leader. He goes on to point out the importance of being patient whether that involves a business model or the leadership plan you’ve set before yourself. A leader must trust in the steps they wish to follow. He see’s how setting a lofty goal of Amazon is a great bar but he was extremely lucky how things turned out.
Finally he stresses being short & specific with communication. Communication is vital to how Amazon came to be. He gives a statement on how people reading memos or power points can become disinterested with length. “Full Sentences are harder to write. They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six page narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.” (Bezos) He looks to continue this leadership as Amazon continues to grow.
References
Rafi, Yousuf. “10 Leadership Lessons from the Dotcom Mogul Himself: Jeff Bezos TaskQue.” TaskQue, 14 May 2019,
Eric Anderson says
Great post! Your submission caught my eye because I also find Jeff Bezos to be a compelling leadership figure. Love him or hate him (and there are many people who do), his career and the success of Amazon are impossible to ignore and he’s therefore worthy of study and understanding, at the very least.
Jeff Bezos’s focus on short and specific communication, as you indicate, would seem to reveal that he is what our text would call a low-context communicator, where “It is assumed that receivers need the context around the communication and so most information is contained in explicit codes” (Abramson, Moran, & Harris, 2018, p. 51).
Another aspect of Bezos’s leadership that I’ve found useful in my own life is strict adherence to the 2 Pizza Rule. This rule stipulates that one should “never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn’t feed the entire group” (Cain, 2017). I’ve found this approach to almost always be effective since it creates decision-making and idea-generating environments in which individual contributors feel that their voice is heard and valued.
Looking forward to reading more of your posts this semester!
– Eric
References:
Abramson, N. R., Moran, R. T., & Harris, P. R. (2018). Managing cultural differences: global leadership for the 21st century. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Cain, A. (2017, June 7). Jeff Bezos’s Productivity Tip The ‘2 Pizza Rule’. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/business-insider/jeff-bezos-productivity-tip-two-pizza-rule.html.
aal5253 says
Also i believe Jeff Bezzos more than lucky was applying the principles of Global Leadership: learning form others and change. (Robert Moran 9th 2019) Like; structure, technology, mindsets, tasks, process, environment, people(HR). “And a hard work to planning and controlilng their own destiny withing their own life space.”(Moran 2019) . he also learn many skills of another global leader as Bill Gates and I believe he gave him a clue of the potential of selling books and later products online to the world.
aal5253 says
Hi I like your post is very interesting. I believe that Jeff Bezos is a real leader, because in other ways he would not be where he is now. One of the most richest men in the world. And I think he has to go through many mistakes before he find out what is the real path to follow and make more money than before. Or how to lower costs more than it was. or how to increase your incomes in ways that instead of gaining a million a year you can win ten millions.
In my opinion Jeff Bezos was looking an opportunity to develop and when he saw it he dropped all he was doing and start working in his vision. But I do not think he was lucky, just he grabed the opportunity he got and did not waste. My question is why do you believe Jeff Bezos was lucky? I kind of understand your point but I quite not got it.