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Positive Leadership Behavior of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos

Brief biography of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com in addition to owning ‘The Washington Post’. His position as an entrepreneur has made him one of the richest guys worldwide. Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico (Murrell, 2014). He is now considered an e-commerce pioneer and renowned American entrepreneur. Bezos had a lot of passion for computers and ended up studying computer science and electrical engineering at Princeton University.

After his graduation, he started working on Wall Street and became the youngest vice president at D.E Shaw investment firm. Four year later, he resigned from his job and started Amzon.com as a virtual bookstore. Later in 2013, he purchased The Washington Post at a $250 million deal (Ritala et al., 2014). His Amazon idea has enabled him reach the peak of success, making the current King of the internet. By the end of July this year, his net worth rose to $91 billion making him the richest man on planet at the time (Chiu et al., 2017).

Positive Attributes of Jeff Bezos

Prioritizing Customer Service

The CEO is known for his empty chair tradition. During each executive meeting, he always pull an additional chair in the conference room to act as a reminder of the person missing in the room, the customer. This has made the company to be very cautious and conscious of how consumers would feel about its new products. Amazon.com currently tracks its market performance against five hundred measurable goals, 80% of which are customer related (Hubbard, 2016).

Knack for Innovation

Jeff Bezos has been an innovator as long as anyone can remember. His drive for new things has only escalated as time passed by. This innovative skills led to the transformation of a virtual bookstore to currently an online portal that provides everything an individual can ever need (McGurl, 2016). This attribute makes those working under Bezos to be as innovative and creative to ensure their survival in the company.

His Ability to Set a Good Example

As an ethical leader, Jeff Bezos has been the example of what CEOs should aspire to be. His staunch experimentation attitude has constantly led his company to greater heights. He takes part in the creation of new ideas by thinking outside the box to give the world best services possible (Reimers & Waldfogel, 2017). The steady force of his experimental attitude over time has trickled down to become embedded in the tech culture.

How Bezos Model Positive, Ethical Leadership Behavior for Others

Bezos ethical leadership model has taught the rest of the world to amend their traditional ways of competition. The first teaching that other businesses learn from Amazon.com is that they should focus on customers and not competitors (Lovelace et al., 2017). Bezos noted that most tech companies obsess over their competitors by waiting to see what their rivals introduce then try to make a better one.  The second way that Bezos leadership models businesses is to build a culture that is right for their companies. For instance Amazon’s culture is notoriously cost-conscious and breakneck-paced (Renko, 2017). This has enabled the company to thrive since the culture fits the company operations.

The third way in which Bezos leadership model current businesses is by making employees think like the business owners. By the time he wrote Amazon’s first manual, Bezos had only 614 employees. Currently, he employs 230,000 people and plans to hire 100,000 full-time employees over the next one half a year (Lovelace et al., 2017). Morality of the approach is that whether it is profit sharing, stock or bonuses, companies should give workers a stake in every success of the company.

How I Will Model Positive, Ethical Leadership Behavior for Others as a Leader

Based on what I have learned about Jeff Bezos, I would model ethical leadership for others in two main ways. First, I would foster the spirit of resilience and perseverance. This way, those under me will be able to sustain the pressures weighing on them to produce perfect products for the consumers. Secondly, I would encourage others to think long term in their bid to serve customers. This is because thinking long term enable innovators to forecast the future market trend which they can easily turn into their advantage.

How Modeling Positive, Ethical Leadership Behavior Allow Leaders Set the Standards of Organizations

Ethical leaders always use their authority and power to serve the greater good of the organizations and as such set various leadership standards. Through demonstration of ethical leadership, such leaders promote high integrity levels thus encouraging subordinates and stimulating sense of trustworthiness (Wallace et al., 2013). Such modeling motivates others in the organization to put the company’s interest first by following the leadership standard set by the ethical leader.

Three Most Important Qualities A Leader Who Models Positive, Ethical Leadership Behavior Must Possess

The three most important qualities include selflessness, taking responsibility for everything and putting customers first to the point of obsessing over them (Carter et al., 2014). Every ethical leader must be strong on selfless service to the interest of others. All ethical leaders must accept that they are indirectly or directly responsible for everything that happen in an organization, both good and bad (Demirtas & Akdogan, 2015). Finger pointing and blame shifting cannot be portrayed by such leaders. An ethical leader in an organization must acknowledge that customers are the organization’s bosses (Kelloway et al., 2013). Their desires must be fulfilled first to ensure the success of that company.