Amazon and Jeff Bezos Leadership Research Paper Example

Business world scion is enjoying a renaissance today than ever before. The modern era in business is characterized by leading entrepreneur figures who are more prevalent, accessible and visible as compared to the previous decades. The competition among various corporations changes every day due to the ever-changing global economy. For this reason, businesses influences is a key determiner of the direction and pace of globalization, which is among factors to consider in nurturing a business domain. However, although the primary purpose of any firm is to make a profit, wealth is not sufficient to drive its survival and growth in the midst of intense competition. Successful companies rely heavily on creativity and intelligent of their leaders and other stakeholders. Therefore, influential leaders have some unique features distinguishing them from the crowd. A score of successful businesses has a key personality behind their triumph. Jeff Bezos an American entrepreneur, the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon is among the well-known leaders of successful corporations not only in America but globally.

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Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com

The e-commerce pioneer was born in 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bezos had an early love of computers as a teenager and studied electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University. After completion of his studies, he became the youngest senior vice president at the investment firm D.E. Shaw. However, four years later he had to quit the lucrative job to open his virtual bookstore, Amazon.com, which with time became and is still one of the biggest selling websites in e-commerce. The idea of Bezos initially seemed small, and his decision to quit his job sounded uninformed. Nevertheless, Bezos was determined and willing to take the risk. The fledgling company started in the premises of his parents garage where with the help of a few employees he began to develop some software. Later on, they expanded their operations in a two-bedroom house, and after testing the site with about 300 friends, Amazon.com was officially in the market from 1995. Though the success of the company was initially meteoric, it was surprising and encouraging for the Amazon to have sold books across 45 foreign countries within 30 days of its operation. In fact, after two months it was making sales worth $20000 a week (Murrell, 2014).

Leadership styles

Bezos shows enthusiasm, energy, and drives in his step to face off any challenge in his path of success. His persuasion for the success of Amazon.com and its vision displays his intensity and ability to inspire his employees through hardships in the rapidly growing company. He is a charismatic leader with a confident and enthusiastic personality. Nevertheless, Bezos has a way of influencing people to behave in a particular manner. Therefore, he combines the task oriented and people-oriented behavioral leadership styles for the good of the company. For example, as a task-oriented leader, while starting Amazon.com Bezos had an outstanding energy and drove to pursue his goal even though some new ventures seemed risky. Also, as a people-oriented leader, he to inspire his employees even when the current situations are challenging.

The path-goal theory of leadership

The path-goal theory specifies leadership style and behavior that best fits employees by creating a conducive environment for work. The primary goal of this model is to motivate employees, enhance and satisfy them as productive members of the company. Bezos has little to motivate his employees, as his primary target is to reach the goals of the business rather than the welfare and progress of his employees. In fact, some might suggest that as an employee in Amazon.com, all you have to do is give services as instructed for a particular period and you walk out an economically stable man (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015).

Transactional and transformational leaders

A transactional leader is one whose focus is mainly the status quo and the progress of the company towards achieving its goal. On the other hand, a transformational leader has a tendency of enhancing performance through motivation and engage followers by guiding them towards achieving a shared vision (Chaston, 2017). Bezos is more of a transactional leader, as he tends to bother less with other peoples opinions. However, to some extent, this style is productive as employees follow precisely the outlines of their leaders. It is likely to provide positive results and create more business opportunities especially in an era where companies are facing thriving global competition. Also, Bezos have some attributes of transformational leaders especially in scenarios where an employee is considerably innovative and likely to bring productive change.

Strengths and weakness of Jeff Bezos

The management gurus believe that leadership styles keep on evolving, but some leaders stick to one particular style while others tailor theirs based on the situations demands. Bezos believes in himself and knows he can do it better. He keeps challenging new ways of doing things. For instance, today Amazon .com is selling a variety of products and has helped other businesses to advertise their products on their websites. Also, Bezos is a pace setter and is determined to remain some steps ahead of his competitors. Another strength of Bezos is that he is charismatic, making him an activator of innovation and can still build strong relationships. However, among the areas Bezos have to improve on his transformational leadership since being more of transactional can burn out staff who have to keep up with the pace.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is necessary to know that every industry has its movers and shakers. Women and men by virtual of their determination and boldness build new companies, saves them from collapsing and see them succeed to set new paths for others to follow. However, for one to be emulated like Jeff Bezos and others who have built a name management you need to have leadership qualities, which are distinctive from other leaders.

References

Chaston, I. (2017). Leadership and Structure. In Technological Entrepreneurship (pp. 49-72). Springer International Publishing.

Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace. New York Times, 15, 74-80.

Murrell, M. (2014). Book Review: Brad Stone. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 17(2).