On July 27, 2017, Jeff Bezos officially became the wealthiest person in the world over Bill Gates

(Au-Yeung, 2018). How was he able to overtake one of the most influential and rich
entrepreneurs of all time? After graduating from Princeton and working at Wall Street, he
decided to quit his job and pursue his own aspirations. Similar to many success stories, it started
off in a garage where an online bookstore by the name of Amazon was born. Due to the untapped
market of e-commerce in 1995, Amazon produced extreme profit margins and became one of the
fastest-growing brands. In 2018, Amazon became the second company to be valued at more than
one trillion dollars (“Jeff Bezos Biography”, 2014). Through years of experience, success, and
failure, Bezos developed a powerful leadership style that can be attributed to his monumental
achievements. Jeff Bezos is an effective leader because he is self-driven, encourages innovation,
and establishes leadership principles that can empower employees.

Bezos’s internal motivation stimulates a collective drive among his followers. At a young age,
Bezos was intrigued by numerous topics and tried to apply them to his personal life. For
example, in high school, he created a summer camp called the Dream Institute (“Jeff Bezos
Biography”, 2014). They charged six hundred dollars per child and taught them advance content
in subjects like English and Math. He only had six people register, but it demonstrated that he
has the willpower to take his ideas and put them into action. Many teenagers would not take on
such a feat but his mentality allows him to bring on real advancement to the goals he seeks to
face. In order to lead effectively, it is imperative that a leader is enthusiastic about what they are
doing. By doing so, not only can they achieve their own goals but being able to influence others
with their motivation creates a collective purpose. This intrinsic determination does not fall short
when it comes to creating and running a large corporation.

While Bezos had a stable and high paying job on Wall Street, he did not want to settle for a
simple life. Instead, he left his job to reach his own objectives. With the creation of Amazon, he
formed something that no one else ever could. As he ran the company, Bezos’s functioned as a
transformational leader; his ability to convey a common goal and vision empowers his
employees, giving them a sense of meaning to their work. One principle that Bezos strongly
emphasizes is customer satisfaction. He believes that in order to succeed, Amazon must track
and tackle all the customers’ needs. In a letter to shareholders, he said, “One thing I love about
customers is that they are divinely discontent… Their expectations are never static — they go up.
It's human nature” (Bezos as cited in Green, 2018). His insistence on satisfying the customer
translates to the work culture that Amazon has. According to the Foresee Experience Index, for
the ninth year in a row, Amazon has the highest customer satisfaction score among all retailers.
While he is able to effectively motivate his employees, he also communicates the reputation that
Amazon is trying to create to people outside of the organization. As mentioned before, Bezos
sends a letter to his shareholders to update them on the progress that Amazon is making. In each
letter, he incorporates a lesson of some sort to show how the company is continuing to hone its
processes and efficiency to maximize profits. In 2016, he describes how at Amazon, each day is
day one, “Day 1 represents originality, enthusiasm, and an eagerness to delight customers (“22
Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters to Shareholders”, 2019). He informs his shareholders
that they are consistently devoted to a restless work environment, always on their toes. Investors
are likely to be pleased with Bezos’s letters since they make the company seem like it's always
growing. It is examples like these that demonstrate Bezos’s instrumental charisma that is
associated with his accomplishments and leadership capability.
Another key characteristic that Bezos has is constantly pushing for innovation. This allows for
creative thinking among his followers so that they can make original ideas come to fruition.
While he started off with a bookstore, he transformed it into one of the largest retailers in the
world. Now, he has also purchased and formulated many new companies such as the Washington
Post and Whole Foods. Without innovation, he would not have been able to be where he is today.
One key point that he says is, “If you cannot afford to be misunderstood, then for goodness’
sake, don’t do anything new or innovative” (Bezos as cited in Clifford, 2018). He recognizes that
with new ideas, there will be skeptics, questioning the validity of it. Even though there were
many critics during the early stages of Amazon, Bezos inspired those around him and showed the
enormous potential that his company held. Not all leaders have the ability to make an unknown
concept sound reasonable and even achievable.

Moving forward, Bezos continued to add new features and invest in seemingly crazy projects. In
late 2000, he founded Blue Origin, a space organization that hopes to send customers to space in
the future (Axios , 2019). At face value, it may have seemed highly unrealistic at that time.
However, it is this type of ambition that produces the massive advancements that society has
made. With technological developments rapidly growing, space travel for normal people is
becoming closer and closer to reality. Of course, with taking some risks such as this one, there
will come the possibility of some failures. In 2014, the Amazon Fire Phone was released. Due to
its lack of certain apps, the expensive price, late arrival to the market, and gimmicky features, the
Fire Phone was quickly deemed a massive flop (Luckerson, 214). A crucial perspective Bezos
has on failure is that it is okay and accepts that they will occur. With the lackluster debut of the
Fire Phone, Amazon still benefited from it. It helped improve the later released Amazon Echo
and Alexa with their features (Gilbert, 2019). Obviously, failures are not wanted, but by
normalizing it, extensive achievements can be made. On the contrary, if failure is punished, no
one would ever be willing to voice a new idea. Bezos’s innovative mindset can be seen in this
interview in 2001 at the academy of achievement: “I was not going to regret trying to participate
in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I
failed, I wouldn't regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I
knew that that would haunt me every day” (Bezos, as cited in Gilbert, 2019). His inner nature
tells him that he must remain imaginative since anything could be the next big thing. Leaders
must have this perspective in order to make large strides. Otherwise, companies can become
complacent and die out within a short amount of time.

Bezos holds many qualities that make a great leader but what sets him further apart is
empowering his followers to become their own leader. On the Amazon website, they have a page
that depicts the leadership principles that all employees follow. Bezos acknowledges that
workers must also have a leader’s ambition. In doing so, he creates citizen leaders in his
workforce, resulting in people within the company, regardless of their official title, having the
opportunity to take on the initiative towards their tasks. An individual with agency has a much
higher value compared to an individual who mindlessly follows. For instance, one of the
principles listed on their website is, “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit” (Amazon’s Global
Career Site, n.d.). Bezos is unafraid of conflict; he regards it as a positive element to progression.
The description goes on to explain the importance of challenging decisions when one feels
inclined to do so. Compromising just to do so causes groupthink in which creativity is limited
and poor ideas may pass as acceptable. Not only does Bezos does not sugar-coat his ethics, but
he clearly illustrates what is expected from each employee. This way, staff members all can
abide by a set of guidelines that delineates the obligation they have towards their duties.

Bezos’s leadership style can be seen from the implication of these fundamental precepts. He uses
smart power to conventionalize the concepts that he values and believes are meaningful. His
method for doing this can be seen in the way he enforces different policies. Bezos’s obsession
with customers is something that he is very firm on. During the holiday season years ago, Bezos
asked the vice president of customer service how long the wait time was for customer support.
The VP told him less than a minute, but then, “Bezos dialed Amazon's 800 number on the room's
speakerphone, and all 30 executives waited out many brutal minutes of cheerful hold music.
Bezos grew angrier, Price fumbled with his phone, and the others fidgeted until finally a
representative answered and the CEO said "I'm just calling to check" and slammed the phone
down” (Bhardwaj, 2018). Here, Bezos is evidently using hard power against his staff to show his
seriousness towards a client’s fulfillment. His aggressive tone strictly upholds his standpoint on
this topic and causes others to take on the same outlook. On the other hand, when it comes to
things such as innovation, he uses soft power to spark action within people. Since he is tolerant
of failure, workers are motivated to try new ideas without having the fear of the consequences.
By combining the two, he creates a social dynamic that followers can easily comprehend.

Bezos’s success was not a coincidence. Though some people may have thought he was lucky, it
was his ability to identify the next game-changer for the industry and act upon it. Taking that risk
to chase what started off as an unattainable fantasy, quickly turned into one of the world’s largest
companies. However, in order to achieve greatness, one must maintain their status. Bezos does
this through his leadership skills which extended the possibilities of his corporation. With as
wealthy as he is now, his capital can be used to fund any venture he so desires. In combination
with his veteran leadership qualities, he possesses the expertise to influence others due to his
innate determination, push for progression, and clear foundations for producing pioneer leaders.

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Good Thing: 'If the Size of Your Failures Isn't Growing, You're Not Going to Be

Inventing at a Size That Can Actually Move the Needle'.” Business Insider,

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