The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder of the giant company Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is one of the greatest transformational leaders in the world. At 31 years old, Jeff Bezos was able to start Amazon with tiny financial support from his company. The young computer scientist made what is today considered one of the most successful companies in the world from a small online book store. Harvard Business Review published the best performing CEOs across the world, and Jeff Bezos was ranked second after Steve Jobs. Bezos had risen the ranks from number seven in 2010, and during that period as the CEO, Amazon delivered 12,266% as industry-adjusted shareholder returns, and the company’s value grew by $111 billion (HBR Editors, 2016). The contributions of Jeff Bezos to Amazon have assumed a critical role in his title of being the best Chief Executive Officer.
Jeff Bezos has a transformational leader’s character traits as he is passionate, inspiring, enthusiastic, and energetic. As a transformational leader, Jeff Bezos inspires and encourages his team towards attaining the company’s goals (Harrison, 2017). Jeff Bezos is also a charismatic leader as he can inspire others to be as successful as him (Harrison, 2017). Since the foundation of Amazon, Jeff Bezos has captivated and inspired talent and other business leaders to work towards his vision. The entrepreneur has established various businesses where he inspires other CEOs and entrusts the entire leadership in them. This type of leadership is very inspiring to young business leaders who would like to follow in their footsteps.
In his leadership philosophy, Jeff Bezos values change management as he perceives companies as living things that have to survive by staying competitive. Bezos has three companies under his name and none of them uses their original models. For instance, Amazon began as an online book store but today stocks and sells various categories including clothes, computers, shoes, jewelry, and electronics among others. After acquiring The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos transformed the newspaper company into an online journalism platform. In the case of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos brought great transformations to the company (Harrison, 2017). Blue Origin started as an aerospace manufacture decades ago with Jeff Bezos as its founder. Through his transformational leadership, Blue Origin does not only manufacture aerospace but also plays a great role in the space tourism industry.
Jeff Bezos has a complete comprehension of the influence of a leader on the company’s organizational culture, and therefore leads with examples. Bezos is always at the lead, especially when the company is experiencing a crisis (Wiggington, 2018). Jeff Bezos embodies the attributes and qualities that all of his employees would want to have. This could be the reason why the founder of Amazon has always been engaged in the Washington Post journalist, Rezania having been imprisoned in Iran on spying charges. This shows that he is someone dependable and can help his employees whenever they get into trouble.
Prioritizing service to customers is one of Jeff Bezos’ unique leadership qualities. Bezos believes in the tradition of an empty chair so that during a meeting, there is always an empty chair in the conference room (Wiggington, 2018). The empty chair represents the presence of a customer, and this shows how he highly values customer service. Such attribute enables him together with his team to be mindful of how the customer would be responsive to their discussions, strategies, and decisions.
References
Harrison, C. (2017). Leadership theory and research: A critical approach to new and existing paradigms. Springer.
HBR Editors. (2016). The best-performing CEOs in the world. Harvard Business Review. Web.
Wiggington, D. K. (2018). Amazon: David Becomes Goliath. Web.