Leadership is defined as a process where an individual influences a group of individuals in order to achieve a common goal (Northouse, 2015). Smircich and Morgan (1982) explain that leadership structures an organisation, and it is so ingrained into the popular thought that the mere absence of leadership is seen as the absence of organisation. I feel that leadership plays a key role in the structure of an organisation, and ultimately is where the leader and its followers influence each other whilst working towards a shared goal. Although leaders set the direction for their followers, they must use their leadership style to guide their followers to achieve the shared goal.
Big five personality factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness (Goldberg, 1990) were found to have a strong relationship with leadership with extraversion most strongly associated (Judge et al., 2002).
Low Neuroticism, High Extraversion:
Bezos is known for his laughter and positive energy but can be assertive. He is a straight talker and if an employee fails to meet his standers they will know about it through remarks such as ”Are you lazy or just incompetent?” and “I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today” (Edwards, 2013).
Openness and Conscientiousness:
Bezos is seen to be an email mastermind, he will send employees a simple question mark to inform them of an issue and giving them a warning in order to solve it (Sanghani, 2013). He is always curious to what his employees are producing and is organised in his controlled communication through emails.
Agreeableness:
Bezos uses the phrase “disagree and commit” and states that it saves a lot of time and that every professional should start using it (Ward, 2017). Employees use this phrase to ask colleagues or managers to go with an idea that they feel strongly about. It can also be used in times where someone is hesitant on an idea but has trust in the person executing it. This shows Bezos’ accepting and trusting nature towards his employees.
Jeff Bezos is the CEO and founder of Amazon. His net worth is $83.7bn, and he owns nearly 17% of the company (Forbes, 2017).
George (2003) describes 5 characteristics of authentic leaders: passion, behaviour, connections, consistency and compassion. Authentic leaders are compassionate towards others and their followers have complete trust in their leader.
Passion and Behaviour:
Bezos knows that in order to succeed Amazon need to focus on the customer and adhere to the well-known slogan “the customer is always right”. In early Amazon meetings an empty chair would be present so that the employees would be forced to think about the most crucial person in the room, the customer (Anders, 2012). Bezos uses his customer focus in order to look at things in the long term, staying true to his and the company values and behaving in this way.
Connections:
In 2015 Bezos announced the expansion of the internal question and answer tool Amazon Connections, which collects feedback from employees. Amazons culture is ‘friendly and intense’ (Anders, 2012), therefore good communication and trust between Bezos and his followers is key to his success as a leader.
Consistency:
Bezos has taken on a person vision and has achieved it through his determination. He has seen setbacks within the evolution of Amazon but has still gone on.
The situational approach demands that leaders adapt their style to the followers, in terms of commitment and competence (Northouse, 2015). Bezos uses the same leadership style for all of his employees in each aspect of the business. He works with a coaching approach, where he is directive in what he wants from his employees but supports them equally. No leader has perfected their leadership style, however some employees may require a different approach with varying support and direction, therefore if Bezos was to utilise the situational approach it would benefit his relationship with his employees.
Leadership and Jeff Bezos: Amazon Founder.
Megan Lang S1601838
Leadership
Jeff Bezos
Traits Theory
Authentic Leadership
Situational Leadership