Amazon Servant Leadership

Key Issues for Amazon. The key issue for Amazon.com is that the company’s median tenure is 1.0 years according to the article, “Why Google and Amazon Employees Are Out The Door In Barely A Year” by Anya Kamenetz. Having a high turnover rate can be very critical to a company’s downfall; therefore, the question here is why is Amazon’s employee turnover so high? MSNmoney published the article, “6 reasons Amazon employees burn out so fast” which gives some insight to why so many employees leave this ever so growing company. The main reason would be because of the CEO, Jeff Bezos. According to the article, Bezos is very freighting to

A servant leader must listen to a person fully without interrupting or judging them. While doing my service at the animal shelter there were two other people doing service. They were prisoners wearing the orange jumpsuit. Although most people would assume they are bad and not to talk to them, me and my group had a conversation with them about the dogs. They showed a lot of compassion about what they were doing. Although it was work they were forced to do they gave it their all. I listened and communicated with them the entire time without judging whatever they might have done. This was showing servant leadership in one of the hardest

Simply, servant leaders hold a view as a servant first and leader second (Owens & Hekman, 2012). Moreover, servant leaders emphasize personal responsibility for the organization and all internal and external stakeholders (Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012). As stated, expressing a genuine concern and care for people are a basis of servant leadership. In addition, servant leadership also focuses on the growth of

A servant leader for me is an individual who simply puts others ahead of themselves, with the main purpose of achieving results for their organization, by keeping in mind the needs of everyone else around them. A servant leader is one with personality traits like; empathy, compassion good listening skills, stewardship, and an honest commitment to the growth of others. Servant leaders are individuals who have a natural inclination to serve, and such a conscious choice makes them desire to lead. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional leaders who aim to gain power or to acquire material belongings.

Jeff leadership style motivated his employees during the early years when the company was expanding and not bringing in profits. Robbins and Coulter stated “Jeff Bezos has demonstrated an ability to inspire his employees through the ups and downs of a rapidly growing company” (2012, p. 208). How did he manage to motivate his employees? He did so through building a strong culture of customer satisfaction and innovation. Jeff wanted Amazon to be "Earth's biggest anything store," and consistently reinforced that desire throughout the years (Academy of Achievement, 2010). Jeff was determined to succeed and increase market share. He truly felt that not only was Amazon going to succeed but stay the market leaders through innovation. He incorporated how he wanted to reach his objectives through Amazon’s “Six Core Values” and by building a strong

Servant leadership is defined by a willingness of a leader to put the needs, desires, recognition and success of their employees and organization above their own interests. They often inspire followership through their example resulting in deeply loyal subordinates that are motivated to emulate the leader’s behavior not out of fear or a desire to please and impress but because of its intrinsic value. Reading through the results of my Seven Habits Profile I noticed that I was comparatively deficient on a few of the foundational and organizational habits such as putting first things first and beginning with the end in mind. Conversely, I had a much higher level of empathetic traits with synergy, seeking first to understand, and thinking win-win taking the top three spots. These traits are highly consistent with servant leadership.

Over the course of my career, I have tried to model various leadership behaviors based upon successful leaders that I have worked with or for. This has led me to incorporate different styles into my own. Considering my current leadership strengths and how I view successful leaders I will use a servant leadership theory to analyze my own competencies. Servant leaders have 9 different aspects comprised of: emotional healing, creating value for the community, conceptual skills, empowering, helping subordinates grow and succeed, putting subordinates first, behaving ethically, relationships, and servanthood (Boone & Makhani, 2005, pg. 86). The aspects of a servant leader are those that I personally value and identify with. In addition to this, it is my belief that servant leaders, because they are people oriented, are more effective in a variety of environments and situations.

Many have developed elements that they believe are the foundation of servant leadership. In summary, included in the fundamentals are healing, creating value for community, empowering, empathy, listening, awareness, behaving ethically, and helping others grow and succeed. Healing refers to leaders trying to help solve problems and relationships. Creating value for community refers to leaders serving as an example and encouraging others to also serve the community. Empowering refers to leaders providing followers with autonomy. Empathy refers to leaders understanding others. Listening is a trait all leaders should possess. In order to understand, one should first listen. Awareness refers to leaders attentive to the things happening around them. Behaving ethically refers to the demonstrating of integrity to gain the trust of followers. Helping others grow and succeed refers to leaders providing support to followers to help them develop and accomplish professional and personal goals.

Unfortunately, Bezos autocratic style has had profound effects on Amazons culture. Perhaps most importantly, Bezos has created a culture of metrics. Consequently, it has led to a competitive atmosphere, which has created an uncomfortable working environment for many employees. For example, some employees have sabotaged their cohorts

(Keith 2018) Servant Leaders have traits that include stewardship, foresight, awareness, listening, empathy, persuasion, building/rebuilding community, conceptualization, healing, and building community. Leaders who develop these characteristics will involve their peers and subordinates in decision making, which can lead to improvements to morale and group

Servant leadership is a type of leadership whereby the leader serves the needs of the people, empathizes with them, and involves them in solving their needs. Servant leadership is all about involving the people you are leading in your decision making, being ethical and caring for the people to enhance their personal growth at the same time improve their life. A servant leader does not simply delegate roles; he starts the work and energizes the others to join him and get the work done. According to Spears (2004), the servant leader as defined by Greenleaf is one who gets the natural feeling of wanting to serve first and then a conscious choice brings him/her to lead. This leader makes sure that other people’s highest-priority needs are take

The corporate culture at Amazon can be described as a task culture according to Charles Handy’s theories of corporate culture, where the main focus is on getting results from the work done. Individuals and teams are empowered to take responsibility and make a contribution. As a result, formal job titles are of less importance, as the emphasis is put on their contribution and problem-solving abilities. (Hoang 194). Amazon has created a sense of belonging and unity within its’ workforce by installing the idea that anyone can contribute. This can be seen through the 14 leadership principles that Amazonians refer to as the “articles of faith”, outlining how employees should act. It is at the core of Amazon’s corporate culture; It’s used in daily rituals, in hiring, at meetings and are quoted in food-truck lines at lunchtime (Streitfeld). Most importantly, it applies to all Amazonians and they are told each one of them is a leader (Sanghani). For instance, the co-inventor of the delivery-by-drone project announced in 2013 was a junior level engineer (Streitfeld). Therefore, the task-oriented culture can be the source of the stressful work-environment stress despite fostering motivation and responsibility within the employees.

While Amazon faces many issues in a rapidly changing economic, political and global environment, this paper will focus on how Amazon can increase loyalty among its customers and continue to differentiate

The main philosophy at Amazon is “to create shareholder value over the long term.” To work through this philosophy, Amazon focuses on customers continually and makes investment decisions in light of long-term

Several reviews have been conducted to provide insight into servant leadership as a theory. Parris and Peachey (2013) state that Russell and Stone reviewed the theoretical framework of servant leadership and listed nine distinct character traits of servant leaders, namely; integrity, honesty, vision, service, trust, modeling, pioneering, appreciation of others and empowerment. Parris and Peachey (2013) appreciate the conceptual framework in the work of Russell and Stone yet they note that it lacks a methodology.