During the last several decades, Amazon has been defined as one of the most successful and popular companies that developed its services online on a global level. Amazon’s goals and values are interrelated with the needs and interests of modern people. Such an approach and the necessity to recognize the demands of customers make the company one of the best representatives in its field. Its international site development and numerous customer service centers attract the attention of analytics and researchers.
The company’s main achievement lies in the possibility to gather several things and ideas and retail them in a short period. Nothing extraordinary is observed in the activities developed by the employees of Amazon. Still, many people believe that the core of Amazon’s success is its leader, Jeff Bezos. This person remains to be one of the brightest examples of a transformational leader in the sphere of e-commerce. He has already introduced numerous visions of the future and proved that his approach could help people in case it is planned and developed thoroughly.
The peculiar feature of Bezos is the intention to cooperate with people of different ages in order not to find and buy goods and services but also to find out new ideas and elaborate them till they bring the required portion of success and benefits. Jeff Bezos is the leader who promoted Amazon Revolution several years ago and proved that some leadership attributes and traits influenced organizational performance and helped millions of people to meet their personal and professional needs. This paper aims at discussing the success of Amazon and the role of its leader who believes that the company is not only a platform where people could sell and buy something but a platform where people have to cooperate and promote self-development (Bergvall-Kareborn & Howcroft, 2014).
Bezos Leadership: Theoretical Perspective
Nowadays, leadership is improved and developed with the help of numerous theories, principles, and practices (Yukl, 2013). Taking into consideration the present variety of definitions and meanings of leadership (Yukl, 2013), it is so easy to lose the right way and be confused with the options offered. Leadership is not only a way of how to organize people and provide them with the purposes and resources to work with. Leadership is a style of work and a process that motivates people and helps them understand their needs and impact. Many types of leadership are defined to provide leaders with credible help and suggestions on how to become successful in the chosen sphere.
In the world where leaders have to demonstrate their best qualities and abilities, transformational leadership remains to be one of the most popular styles due to the possibility to work with different people, identify changes and challenges, find solutions in a result of cooperative work, create new approaches and visions, and inspire people. Such leaders should not make people do something or follow the suggestions offered by someone. Transformational leaders can identify what kind of work should be done, how to deal with changes, and what steps are appropriate in a certain situation.
Bezos is a good example of a transformational leader, who is ready to investigate the field, make conclusions, and involve some people in his work. He is ready to speak and explain each detail of his projects, including the technology builders and transcriptions (Irani, 2013). People who are lucky to cooperate with Bezos admit that this leader is interesting and attractive due to his abilities to use his wealth and his interests to develop different projects and promote the digital revolution the way it should be accepted by ordinary people.
His leadership style is defined by his ambitions and attitudes. His obsession with his customers and the people he has to work with makes him strong and confident. It is not difficult for him to identify and comprehend one mistake and restore the work of a system, as well as it is not difficult for him to make millions of people to accept his ideas and believe in his approaches. It is also interesting to observe how Bezos applies his ideas to different projects. He does not want to make them different but tries to unite them using his main principles and proving that his decisions make sense. The fields of e-commerce and Internet technologies challenge the traditional trades and distribution channels considerably.
Bezos is always ready for changes and re-evaluations to understand the main values, make new propositions, and meet the requirements and expectations ordinary people could have. He understands that human resources, as well as the resources of the company, should be spent properly. Therefore, it seems to be reasonable for him to divide the resources regarding the nature of work done. Bezos discovers one simple still very effective truth that “in the offline world 30% of a company’s resources are spent providing a good customer experience, and 70% goes to marketing”, and, at the same time, “online 70% should be devoted to creating a good customer experience and 30% should be spent on ‘shouting about it’” (Akhter & Rahman, 2015, p. 59). He believes that his work online makes him think better of his customers and understand the quality of his employees and their readiness to define weak and strong aspects of the work.
Leadership Attributes in the Work of Bezos
The quality and outcomes of leadership are usually defined by the behaviors and attributes of the people involved in this process (Yukl, 2013). Each year, researchers and policy-makers develop their new strategies and methods to be used to create a good leader. They introduce and underline the qualities that should matter. The example of Bezos shows that it is not necessary to compete to become the best leader. It is enough to identify personal needs and abilities and inform people about their roles in this world. At the same time, this leader serves as a good example of how to develop the main qualities and use them in the right place and at the right time.
In any situation, a leader has to stay focused and concentrated on a task. Many things have to be taken into consideration while developing business. However, there are always many unnecessary things and details that have to be removed or changed. In one of his interviews, Bezos said that “word of mouth is very powerful” (Akhter & Rahman, 2015, p. 60). This attribute is important as in work with employees, as well as in the research of customers.
Another crucial attribute of a leader is confidence. A leader may have several bright ideas and suggestions. Still, if they are not confident in everything offered, the value of such work may be equal to zero. Bezos is not only confident in his ideas but also passionate about everything he tries to be involved in. His leading confidence could be observed in his Amazon business, his achievements in the space industry, and his abilities to communicate with people who are interested in him under the conditions which are convenient for him. Some people may consider his confidence as a sign of egoism. Still, it is not true. People need good leaders, and Bezos, without any doubt, is one of them due to his company’s self-understanding and abilities to raise important things (McGurl, 2016). Bezos also says that the success of any business depends on people’s readiness to respect and challenges the decisions of each other. It is expected that leaders advocate their points of view and try to expand their possibilities instead of making numerous attempts and searching for new compromises (Schoemaker & Krupp, 2015).
Finally, the attention to innovations and the readiness to accept and develop it is a crucial attribute of a good leader that is so perfectly introduced by Bezos. He does not want to take one position and stick to it for a certain period. Bezos finds it necessary to move all the time and discover new approaches and new opportunities for his company and people around. His ability to follow the latest innovations may be explained by his customer obsession and readiness to accept the customer’s point of view (McGurl, 2016). Innovations may have different forms, and Bezos can identify the most effective for his company and his activities.
The list of leadership attributes is long indeed. Several modern theorists, journalists, and writers develop various approaches to introduce a powerful image of a good leader. Such qualities as open-mindedness, passion, empowerment, generosity, and positivity also play an important role in the development of a strong leader. It is possible to detect the majority of these qualities in one person, Jeff Bezos.
Bezos Success in Organizational Performance and the Amazon Revolution
It is wrong to neglect the presence of the technological revolution in the modern world. It aims at liberating people and underlying the potential of technology in different business fields (Bergvall-Kareborn & Howcroft, 2014). The latest achievement of Bezos and his team have already brought several benefits to Amazon. The company offers artificial intelligence as a possibility to support life and stimulate human cognition with the help of computers and effective software (Irani, 2013). The power of the Internet becomes impressive day by day.
It is hard to predict its possible development in the next several years. Still, Bezos shows that it is not necessary to try to predict its powers or possible effects but use what is crucial at the moment. If people could take something, they should not wait for some time to clarify the outcomes but do it because they can. Bezos’ confidence is his key because he takes the steps which he is aware of and cooperates with people he is confident in. He sets the goals and makes sure the company meets them in a certain period. Though such a task is not always easy to complete, it is always interesting and challenging to develop new strategies and teach people.
Nowadays, Bezos is known as the author of one of the most effective and successful revolutions in the whole world. His Amazon is a challenge for many companies that work with customers and for any organizations that aim at developing new services and support. Amazon is a combination of a good service company, a powerful team of professionals, and a stable client base. Each step is a new challenge that is identified and solved by the people led by Bezos. His leading skills help to organize the work in different regions of the world and unite people regardless of their differences, preferences, age, nations, and other factors.
Conclusion
In general, the topic of leadership attributes and traits to organizational performance is properly discussed in terms of the work done by Jeff Bezos as a leader of Amazon. His achievements and global recognition may serve as the best evidence that hard work and attention to personal possibilities may be appreciated. His qualities, including confidence, attention to the details, and recognition of personal, employees, and customers’ needs, and focus on what should be done and what should be achieved help him be one of the best representatives in transformational leadership. He is respected, and he is ready to demonstrate his respect for other people. He investigates the current achievements of worldwide leaders and become the brightest example for many leaders. Finally, he is always ready to help and use his resources to make the contribution that could change the world. The only thing that is required is his confidence that everything he is involved in makes sense and has an explanation.
References
Akhter, S., & Rahman, N. (2015). Building a customer inquiry database system. International Journal of Technology Diffusion, 6(2), 59-76.
Bergvall-Kareborn, B., & Howcroft, D. (2014). Amazon mechanical turk and the commodification of labour. New Technology, Work and Employment, 29(3), 213-223.
Irani, L. (2013). The cultural work of microwork. New Media & Society, 17(5), 720-739.
McGurl, M. (2016). Everything and less: Fiction in the age of Amazon. Modern Language Quarterly, 77(3), 447-471.
Schoemaker, P.J.H., & Krupp, S. (2015). Overcoming barriers to integrating strategy and leadership. Strategy & Leadership, 43(2), 23-32.
Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in organizations (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.