How Jeff Bezos Transformed Online Retail

LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK OF JEFF BEZOS 1
An Examination and Determination of the Leadership Framework:
Amazon’s Corporate Chief, Jeff Bezos
Alegra N Horne
Harvard University Summer School
This paper was prepared for Business Writing & Communication, taught by Professor
John, Ph.D.

An Examination and Determination of the Leadership Framework:
Amazon’s Corporate Chief, Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Amazon.com once stated
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not
trying.”1,3
These simple life principles of hard work, tenacity, and taking chances were heavily
influenced by his supportive maternal grandparents. In truth, he credits his childhood summers
working on their Texas ranch for instilling these valuable life lessons and allowing him to use his
own ingenuity.1
He graciously describes these experiences as “incredible.”1
Introduction
Bezos was born on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to young parents,
Jacklyn and Ted Jorgensen.1
After a year of marriage, his parents divorced and his mother later
remarried his stepfather, Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant.1
At a young age, Bezos exhibited
mechanical inclinations—from dismantling his crib with a screwdriver, to rigging an electric
alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room, to converting his parents’ garage into a
laboratory for his science projects—which fueled his scientific curiosities.1
It was not until early
into high school, that he was introduced to the school computer and quickly gained a fascination
for it.1
After graduating as class valedictorian from Miami Palmetto Sr. High School, Bezos
attended Princeton University and graduated with a degree in computer science and electrical
engineering.1
Out of Princeton, he began his career on Wall Street studying market trends with
Fitel, a start-up company.1
His move to D. E. Shaw, a stock market computer-science firm,
where he met his wife, Mackenzie, quickly led to him becoming senior vice president (SVP).1
It

was during this time, that he noticed an alarming increase in internet usage, and questioned the
opportunities available to a potentially new global market.1
With a seemingly intriguing career
ahead of him, Bezos opted to leave D. E. Shaw. A year later, on July 16, 1995, Amazon.com
launched online as a digital bookstore.1
Immediately, Amazon is an overnight success, and
Bezos rivals Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and other brick-and-mortar big retail booksellers.1
Discussion
Today, Amazon.com is arguably the world’s most customer centric company and Bezos
is credited with having single-handily invented the gold standard by which the world measures
online shopping.1,15
In light of the tech giant’s success, Bezos has achieved billionaire status and
has received a number of accolades for his business efforts.1
In 1999, four-years after the
inception of Amazon.com, he was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.1
In 2008, he was
recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of America’s best leaders.1
In 2012, he was
recognized by Fortune as Businessperson of the Year.22
And, as of November 2014, he was
ranked the best-performing CEO in the World by Harvard Business Review (HBR).18
Bezos is
an outstanding business leader in terms of value creation and profitability with a twist of
relentless idiosyncratic14
manner.
Soon to be marked by its 20th
anniversary, Amazon has seen resilient and remarkable
growth under Bezos’s leadership. A thumb through Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, or
Time magazine, and his leadership style is a conversation of sorts among many in
business.2,7,9,10,14,16,17,18
A critique of Bezos’s leadership style under the theories of leadership,
have him coined transformational and transactional. In fact, an analysis presented by Human
Capital Growth asserts “Bezos embodies many of the characteristics of transformational and

transactional leaders.”7
Not to mention, Forbes touting the leader as charismatic.17
Yes, there
are good reasons to believe that Bezos could be considered transformational and transactional,
since he displays some overlapping character traits. However, neither strategy truly exemplifies
the unique picture of the captivating success amassed by the tech giant under his leadership.
Rather, Bezos, a self-described nerd, has masterfully crafted himself into a modern-day
Rockefeller—a pacesetting visionary who has skillfully used his extraordinary financial and
technical skills, while banishing, with a shrewd kid-like disposition, the competition— to
transform the online retail space.16
Transformational Leadership Style
Transformational leadership, also referred to as empathic or charisma leadership, is a
people-oriented style focused on developing the employee.4,5
Generally a leader, under this
theory, functions as a role model to inspire and motivate, to show concern for the needs and
feelings of others, and to challenge others to be innovative and creative.4
A study published by
the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, suggest that a “transformational
leadership style, promotes a sense of trust and meaningfulness, individually challenges and
develops employees, and has a positive effect on employee well-being.”4
The study further
claims that the leadership style is especially important because of the communication skills
employed, such as recognizing the needs of others and resolving conflicts as “essential
components of workplace health promotion and prevention efforts” concluded by the authors.4
Transformational or Intimidation Leader
Indeed, Bezos displays character traits of a transformational leader—inspiring, energetic,
passionate, and enthusiastic—yet this approach is not the style of leadership which he leads by.
Undoubtedly, he is highly recognized, but not all of his awards are for outstanding business

performance. In fact, during the 2014 3rd
Annual ITUC World Congress in Berlin, he was
crowned the World’s Worst Boss citing complaints of difficult working conditions.12
Independently, a 2013 Payscale.com report cited by International Business Times, ranked
Amazon 2nd
among fortune 500 firms for highest employee turnover behind Massachusetts
Mutual Life.13
Not to mention, a critique posted by a former contract worker, Steve Barker,
criticizing the chief for the company’s insensitive work practices—adding insult to injury.23
Again, to reiterate the study’s conclusions, this leadership style suggests that if an
organization focuses on employee wellbeing “empowering the employee” the implied results are
improved corporate performance. On the contrary, Bezos’s approach entails intimidating his
employees with an empty chair representing the customer as the ultimate boss in the room during
a meeting.14
Rather, this is Bezos’s way of influencing and empowering his employees to
improve on performance.14
Thus, Bezos’s underlying leadership framework is not transformative. A transformative
leader would not lose employees, or intimidate employees with an inanimate object, or ignore
their complaints of harsh working conditions, or use them as a means to an end for Amazon’s
disposal.
Transactional Leadership Style
Synonymously coined “managerial leadership,” transactional leadership involves leading
with literally an “iron fist.”8
This leadership style is based on the idea that the person in charge
measures, trains, and changes employee performance by rewarding or punishing employees to
influence expectations.8
Unlike transformative leaders who share their vision, transactional
leaders are instructional and prefer the status quo.8
Furthermore, leaders who employs this

approach are by and large: micromanagers, uncreative, passive, in-the-box thinkers, and
practical.8
Micromanager with an Obsessive Customer Focus
Admittedly, Bezos is known to micromanage with an eye for detail.7,20
However, he
unequivocally states “determine what your customers need, and work backwards,” and “if
customers don’t want something, it’s gone, even if that means breaking apart a once powerful
department.”14
To this end, Bezos believes that pleasing the tech giant’s 164 million customers over its
56,000 employees’ is Amazon’s greatest asset.14
In essence, Bezos takes embracing the
customer to an extreme level. For example, Amazon tracks its performance against roughly 500
measurable goals with nearly 80% related to customer objectives.14
Not to mention, employees
engage in intense weekly debates over which metrics to watch.14
Likewise, Bezos’s obsessive
customer focus reached a new standard when he set an impossible delivery target of 60 seconds
for the Kindle e-book downloadable speed without considering any technical issues.14
Rather, he
allowed engineers to freely solve the technical aspects as they saw fit, with their only constraint,
according to Bezos, to get it right for consumers.14
When questioned about how much money he
wanted to spend on the project, Bezos shot back “How much do we have.”14
Sure, Bezos could be considered a micromanager, but if Bezos were a true transactional
leader he would not allow radical acts such as employees working independently to freely
innovate, setting high performance standards tailored to customer expectations, intense debates
among employees to measure their performance, or untamed spending habits.
Leadership Drives Company Performance

Rather, a leadership style should be analyzed in light of a CEO’s company performance.
Bezos exhibits a leadership style encompassing both that of a visionary and a pacesetter. A
visionary leadership style embodies the leader articulating their vision for the direction of the
firm but not necessarily detailing how the firm will reach its intended target.11
Bezos has shown
exceptional visionary leadership style from the outset, his skills were most significant during the
dot.com period. During the peak of the 1999 – 2001 internet collapse, many online companies
failed to recovery for lack of planning, while Bezos anticipated the dot.com bust ahead of the
curve and steered Amazon clear.1
In fact, Amazon’s stock would lose over 93% of its value.19
But, due to his quick thinking, Amazon avoided disaster and Bezos strategically moved the firm
towards growth.1
Over the years, he continued to heavily invest in tangibles, thus moving
Amazon from simply being an online store to a firm holding real assets. Bezos financial
savviness from his days working on Wall Street are paying dividends for company.1
Today, the company’s share price is over $450, up nearly 290% over the five-year
period.19
Moreover, its revenues has increased nearly 275% in the same period, and with a
market capitalization over $200 billon it rivals its mature competitors.19
Notwithstanding, Bezos
has generated astronomical shareholder returns of 15,189% over his tenure. With Amazon’s
financial performance, Bezos is beating the market by leaps and bounds. Bezos has proven to
Wall Street that under his direction Amazon can be a powerhouse well into its future.
Pacesetter Leadership Style
Unlike visionary leaders who articulate the vision, pacesetter leaders focus on setting the
standards of performance for carrying out the vision. Bezos is a rare breed in that he’s able to
clearly state a vision for the company and in the same instance set the expectations for superb
performance for obtaining the target. For example, Bezos took what started out as an online

bookstore and evolved Amazon into an anything store carrying over 20 million items for its
customers.20,21
Bezos set extremely high operational standards around achieving 100%
prevention of eliminating delays, product defects, and out-of-stock products.14
In fact, Amazon
tracks such metrics closely making them as rare as possible.14
As a result, he has expanded the
boundaries and reach of Amazon, and curved out its place by ‘out-muscling’ other firms in the
retail, technology, and business services spaces on customer focused performance alone.17
Adaptive Leadership Stance
Additionally, central to Bezos vision is his ability to decode and quickly adapt to
customer trends.10,20
His insight is near unparalleled in his ability to frame Amazon around its
customers, its liken to operating Amazon like “mastering a chest game in his mine.”14,20
With
Bezos’s bold stance, to focus on the customer he has cornered the online space and continues to
improve to this end.18
Bezos’s demand for high performance has translated into an “obsessive
about doing things cheaper, better, and faster” for the customer.14
Bezos insistence is also seen
in his move to acquire a new $750 million Kiva14
technology system to improve faster package
delivery, and his use of drones for “same day service.”14
Not to mention, his meticulous
attention to details, a data-driven Bezos has shown that a delay of 0.1 second in webpage upload
speed translates into a 1% drop in customer activity.14
Notwithstanding, Bezos has been highly criticized for Amazon’s rapid expansion efforts
and operating losses, he maintains “Amazon continues to execute well toward becoming the
world’s largest ‘store.’”23,24
As such, true to Bezos’s core is his ability to be employ both
visionary and pacesetter leadership skills—this adaptive style has accounted for much of
Amazon’s present success.

Conclusion
Marked by humble beginnings, this simple father of four turned corporate chief is an
innovative genius. Hence, what began as an online bookstore operated out of a rundown 2-
bedroom house garage in Seattle, Washington, has become one of the most recognizable brands
in the world. Jeff Bezos’s style of leadership is very important to the corporate culture because it
challenges conventional styles of leadership ideologies and advocates for innovation. Granted,
Bezos style is unique to Amazon but its disruptive nature may be utilized by other firms to
stimulate growth and competitiveness. The visionary leadership style provides opportunities,
while the pacesetter leadership style sets high performance expectations which execute against
the opportunities.
This type of adaptive leadership style is rarely found in any one individual, with the
exception of a few liken to Bezos. As such, Bezos is a shareholder’s dream CEO and the lessons
that is he has created should be captured by anyone looking to aspire to such heights.
Completing this report has given me new found admiration for Bezos, and I truly look forward to
surpassing his success in the future.
In summary, Bezos has fallible character traits, but such traits should not over shallow
Amazon’s remarkable achievements and its global influence sustained under his leadership.
Thus, Bezos is a role model deserving the highest distinction as Harvard Business Review’s best
performing CEO.

References
1. Academy of Achievement. “Jeffrey P. Bezos Biography—Academy of
Achievement,” last modified September 30, 2013, accessed July 1, 2015,
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/bez0bio-1.
2. Adam Hartung, “Why Jeff Bezos is Our Greatest Living CEO,” Forbes, January 8,
2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2013/01/08/why-jeff-bezos-is-our-greatest-
living-ceo/.
3. Ajaero T. Martins, “Jeff Bezos Quotes,” MyTopBusinessideas.com,
http://www.mytopbusinessideas.com/jeff-bezos-quotes/.
4. Kendra Cherry, “Transformational Leadership Linked to Positive Effects on Well-
Being,” About.com, http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/fl/Transformational-Leadership-
Linked-to-Positive-Effects-on-Well-Being.htm.
5. Wikipedia. “Transformational Leadership,” last modified July 11, 2015, accessed July
12, 2015, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_leadership.
6. C. Jacobs, H. Pfaff, B. Lehner et al, “The influence of transformational leadership on
employee well-being: results from a survey of companies in the information and communication
technology sector in Germany,” J Occup Environ Med. 2013; 55(7):772-8,
http://www.acoem.org/TransformLead.aspx#sthash.COdSA7fL.dpuf.
7. J. Djumalieva, I. Widlak, and S. Sarkar-Barney, “Leader of Tomorrow: Secret
Ingredients,” Human Capital Growth What MattersTM
, September 2013,
http://www.humancapitalgrowth.com/resources/newsletter/September2013.
8. Kendra Cherry, “What is Transactional Leadership,” About.com,
http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/f/transactional-leadership.htm.
9. George Anders, “Jeff Bezos’s Top 10 Leadership Lessons,” Forbes, April 4, 2012,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/04/04/bezos-tips/.
10. George Anders, “Inside Amazon’s Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes Customers,”
Forbes, April 4, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/04/04/inside-amazon/.
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http://guides.wsj.com/management/developing-a-leadership-style/how-to-develop-a-leadership-
style/.
12. ITUC CSI IGB, “Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Wins ITUC’s World’s Worst Boss Poll,” May
22, 1014, http://www.ituc-csi.org/amazon-s-jeff-bezos-wins-ituc-s.

13. Lisa Mahapatra, “Amazon.com Has Second Highest Employee Turnover of All
Fortune 500 Companies,” International Business Times, July 26, 2013,
http://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-has-second-highest-employee-turnover-all-fortune-500-
companies-1361257, also see http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/employee-loyalty/full-list.
14. George Anders, “Jeff Bezos Reveals His No. 1 Leadership Secret,” Forbes, April 4,
2012, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0423/ceo-compensation-12-amazon-technology-jeff-
bezos-gets-it.html.
15. TED, “Jeff Bezos Online Commerce Pioneer,”
https://www.ted.com/speakers/jeff_bezos.
16. Venkatesh Rao, “Great CEOs Must Be Either Technical or Financial,” Forbes, March
9, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/03/09/great-ceos-must-be-either-
technical-or-financial/.
17. Steven Rosenbaum, “Leading from Behind—The Secret to Jeff Bezos’s Success,”
Forbes, February 20, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenrosenbaum/2014/02/10/leading-
from-behind/.
18. Harvard Business Review Staff, “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World,” Harvard
Business Review, November 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/11/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-
world.
19. Morningstar, “Growth, Profitability, and Financial Ratios for Amazon.com Inc.”
http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=AMZN.
20. Dan McGinn, “How Jeff Bezos Makes Decisions,” Harvard Business Review,
October 18, 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/10/how-jeff-bezos-makes-decisions.
21. David Streitfeld, “Examining the Amazon Way,” The New York Times, September
26, 2014, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/09/26/examining-the-amazon-way/.
22. Fortune Editors, “2012 Businessperson of the Year,” Fortune, November 16, 2012,
http://fortune.com/2012/11/16/2012-businessperson-of-the-year/.
23. Steve Barker, “An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos: A Contract Worker’s take on
Amazon.com, July 25, 2013, http://www.geekwire.com/2013/open-letter-jeff-bezos-contract-
workers-amazoncom/.
24. Meagan Clark and Angelo Young, “Amazon: Nearly 20 years In Business and It Still
Doesn’t Make Money, But Investors Don’t Seem To Care,” December 18, 2013,
http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-nearly-20-years-business-it-still-doesnt-make-money-investors-
dont-seem-care-1513368.

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