Transformational leadership can be described as a leadership style in which a leader, together with his team, is capable of identifying the resources available, difficulties ahead, and form a long-lasting vision for a team, and is always involving and engaging the workers to do their best, and in the process, grow personally and professionally (Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche, 2015). The most crucial element of transformational leadership is that a leader isn’t merely concerned about deliverables or his performance but also intentionally strives to guide his juniors and utilizes his expertise and experience to offer a desirable professional job to his juniors. The current paper seeks to explore the transformational leadership style of Jeff Bezos, the chief executive at Amazon.
Jeff Bezos can be considered the greatest example of a transformational leader alive. Jeff’s transformational leadership is similar to that of great figures like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, or Welch Jack. In the year 2013, the Harvard Business Review issued a list of the one hundred Best Performing chief executive officers, where Jeff was ranked the second, after Steve Jobs (Matthews, Harbin & Daigle, 2018). The significance of this data lies in Jeff’s quality, which may be witnessed from the progression of his organization- Amazon that is the outcome of Jeff’s aptitude to envision, innovate, and inspire even while other persons did not have faith in his vision. Furthermore, in the year 2017, the remarkable impetus in Wall Street of Amazon, which has increased by forty percent in 2016, has made Jeff consolidates in the 3rd rank in the Forbes’ list of possessions (Matthews, Harbin & Daigle, 2018). Jeff accrues a wealth of 80.3 billion USD.
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Jeff Bezos and Amazon move jointly on the journey of transformational leadership. Amazon is a standard illustration of an organization that initiated e-commerce, an event that is a basement for professionals to ponder 3 metrics to be eligible for transformational leadership. First is the core repositioning. Accomplishment necessitates repositioning the central business and at the same time actively capitalizing in the fresh growth business (Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche, 2015). Whereas Amazon has stretched out its central trading platform into fresh categories, for instance streaming content and food, autonomously, it has formed the biggest cloud computing enterprise (Amazon Web Services) worldwide (Matthews, Harbin & Daigle, 2018). Second is the new growth; fruitful at generating new services, products, as well as business models, which was determined by measuring the fraction of income outer the primary business which may be as a result of new growth. To illustrate, Amazon Web Services constitutes merely ten percent of Amazon’s a hundred and fifty billion USD in returns but makes nearly one billion USD in quarterly working profit (Matthews, Harbin & Daigle, 2018). The third is the financial performance, to be precise, profits, growth, as well as stock performance paralleled to an applicable benchmark (NASDAQ). Amazon was revalued forty percent in the year 2016.
The three metrics invest in Jeff the qualities of a business leader with relevant and substantial experience. This knowledge assisted him to comprehend how to bring change in a company. Nevertheless, the CEO also had an external role in which he runs a developing growth business or intentionally exploited outside opportunities, thus distancing him from the core. This viewpoint assisted the executive in exploring new pathways to growth, without limitations from earlier success formula.
To move toward actual transformational leadership, it is vital to put oneself, his people, his society, his organizations and the universe he lives first before profits. If not, he will progress on a direction toward additional destruction (Aga, Noorderhaven & Vallejo, 2016). A transformational leader is an ordinary person who shows up daily in all ways to become his best worldwide. According to Ghasabeh, Soosay and Reaiche (2015), transformational leadership does not concern the job title, or position or the sum of money a person makes. Rather, it concerns vision, passion, and humility. It involves bringing other persons to an upper greatness level, and Jeff abides by this guiding principle.
In Amazon, Jeff inspires other persons with vision. The vision does not count minus deed. Also, not minus handling novelty. The notion of keeping on the progress for the long-run has been crucial to Jeff’s accomplishment. Vision necessitates the long run, just like innovation does. The vision statement of Amazon is “To be World’s most customer-centric firm, in which consumers may discover and find whatever thing they may wish to purchase online” (Matthews, Harbin & Daigle, 2018). Amazon’s vision statement emphasizes the company’s core objective of becoming the world’s top e-commerce firm. In Amazon’s vision statement, the following elements are underlined: consumer prioritization, broadest variety of products, and worldwide reach.
Jeff trusts that the consumer is the greatest asset of Amazon. Jeff takes accepting the consumer to a great level. For instance, the company trails its performance against approximately five hundred measurable objectives with almost eighty percent associated with consumer goals. Thus, Jeff is aligning vision, goal and mission. In the year 2016 Letter to Shareholders, Jeff maintains that compulsive consumer focus is undoubtedly the greatest defensive of Day 1 energy.
Transformational leadership style does not end in Jeff’s inspiring words. Rather, it is similarly established in Amazon's leadership principles, which are embedded in the firm’s culture. According to the Amazon’s Principal Engineer, the leadership principles are personified in an ordinary way of thinking and the general language articulated daily by Amazonians irrespective of level, role, domain, function, target market or business model (Matthews, Harbin & Daigle, 2018).
The seven transformational leadership principles are as follows. First is simplification: Jeff communicates practically and clearly when communicating the direction that a team is headed to. Second is motivation: Jeff and Amazon obtain the commitment and agreement needed to promote team vision. By recognizing his employees’ dislikes and likes, Jeff understands what inspires and what does not. Third it determination: when one insists on the uppermost standards, he/she talks about the insistence to complete the race irrespective of the obstacles that come on the way. This principle obliges a person to rely on his perseverance stamina, courage, and strength to achieve his vision (Aga, Noorderhaven & Vallejo, 2016). By showing stamina, the CEO shows his workers that hard work repays at the end of the day. Fourth is mobilization, which involves gathering the right team to execute the task, as well as equipping and empowering competent team members. The fifth principle is preparation: Amazon motivates the workers to become boundless learners and interested. The sixth principle is facilitation: Amazon Company identifies this leadership principle and strives to improve the workers’ intellectuality. The last principle is innovation: within a business setting, change is inevitable (Aga, Noorderhaven & Vallejo, 2016). Jeff boldly distinguishes the necessity for transformation and introduces it accordingly.
To conclude, Jeff Bezos, the CEO at Amazon, may be viewed as the best transformational leader alive. Jeff manages a disruptive organization, he applies the cultural change to push commitment, he communicates influential stories regarding the forthcoming days and establishes a road map before disturbance can take hold. Furthermore, Jeff shows up daily in all ways to become his best in the universe with vision and passion.
References
Aga, D. A., Noorderhaven, N., & Vallejo, B. (2016). Transformational leadership and project success: The mediating role of team-building. International Journal of Project Management , 34 (5), 806-818.
Amazon. Retrieved from: https://www.aboutamazon.com/
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C., & Reaiche, C. (2015). The emerging role of transformational leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas , 49 (6), 459-467.
Jeff Bezos Biography (1964–) Updated: Aug 6, 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.biography.com/business-figure/jeff-bezos
Matthews, B. L., Harbin, J., & Daigle, J. (2018). The New York Times Versus Amazon: Is Jeff Bezos' head still in the clouds? Journal of Organizational Psychology , 18 (3).
