, Amazon is a multi national corporation that is known globally, with operations in over
fifty countries across five continents. The success of Amazon cannot be attributed to a
single causation factor, rather as a combination of many interlinking segments of the
business, which when done correctly, leads to the scale of growth which Amazon has
achieved. This essay will focus on the impact that leadership, power and politics has on
the company as it strives for success. Throughout, I will evidence why this factor is the
most fundamental, as it drives the direction of the business through the use of goals and
objectives as well as unifying all factors with the same foundation . I will explore
Amazon’s implementation of management and leadership theories, and breakdown the
success of each, as well as contrasting the leadership of Jeff Bezos and the board of
directors against a company of similar success, whom employed different theories
regarding management.
Leadership styles are subjective, and there is no one correct way to lead a business to
success, as it can be achieved through many different approaches. The broad number of
theories regarding leadership and power enable an executive to adopt a style that they
are comfortable with, and so the difference lies not within the extent of success of the
business, but with the approach taken to get there. An accurate description of this is to
view leadership as “a psychological influencing dynamic” (Leadership, a critical text,
Simon Western). For this essay, I focussed principally on leadership styles in order to
derive those which are used by Amazon, to make a judgement on how it has affected the
business. The traditional leadership styles of transformational and contingency are
widely used in business today, with transformational changing the mindset of
employees, from a viewpoint of mindless work, to that of feeling passionate about the
business. This creates a culture, where employees have a shared set of values and
beliefs, improving motivation and productivity as a result. Further to this, they strive
towards achieving the goals and objective set by the directors as they feel more
involved. Amazon aim to achieve this business culture through their leadership
principles, a set of rules drilled into employees from recruitment in order to unify the
workforce. On the other hand the contingency theory is that certain managers are good
in certain scenarios, or the thought that “leaders are effective when their leadership style
is appropriate for the situation” (Organisational Behaviour 2022). It is an example of
transactional leadership, where as transformational is an example of transactional
leadership. Another one of the traditional leadership styles is that of behavioural, which
examines the behaviours of leaders and followers, and the behaviour is sparked by
conditioning from the manager.
At Amazon, Jeff Bezos is viewed in two ways; firstly as a transformational leader, who
motivates members of his team, but secondly as authoritative, using fear to control his
employees. There is evidence for both when looking at the leadership at amazon, with a
very strong sense of culture between employees, all motivated to achieve the goals and
objectives set by Bezos and his directors evidencing his proficiency of his transformative
leadership. However, there is also evidence of a more transactional, authoritarian style
of management, often subjecting employees to bad working conditions, and unhealthy
hours, with phone calls expected to be answered past 12am. Further to this, the
pressure caused by this creates a toxic culture, where colleagues turn against one
another and report to management through a private messaging system (inside amazon
cnbc). This constant pressure from the management allows amazon to have a fantastic
customer service, with the website being operational far more frequently than similar
companies, as well as same day delivery. This sets amazon apart from other online
retailers, and lets them maintain the growth which they’ve achieved over the last 29
years.
The media criticism of working conditions and unfair leadership traits is likely damaging
for the business, but the growth and success has yet to crumble, and it remains very
unlikely that is either will falter. This is largely due to the systems that they have set up,
culture is an extremely powerful tool for business, and a lot of the success of Amazon is
