Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles
What does Amazon have in common with speedboats?
When it comes to Amazon and its organization, the dominant image is of a fairly centralized company that is strictly aligned with its CEO Jeff Bezos, who is perceived as oversized, and his visions.
In fact, Amazon is quite a mess internally, with many different groups that all act more like start-ups and (are allowed to) establish their very own ways of working.
This means that Amazon is not the tanker with a clear course set by the CEO, as it appears from the outside - but rather an armada of speedboats pursuing different, sometimes conflicting goals.
The North Star for these speedboats are the Leadership Principles
When we talk about leadership, we usually have an image in mind - of a person who says what is right and where to go. The one who leads. But Jeff Bezos realized very early on: in times of digitalization, can a single person successfully keep an eye on everything and, above all, make the right decisions?
At the end of the day, it is the priorities and beliefs that are put into practice, which at Amazon are expressed in the 14 Leadership Principles. These are not preached at Amazon on a quarterly basis at ceremonial events, no, top management attaches particular importance to them in day-to-day business.
The 14 Amazon Leadership Principles summarized in a video
These leadership principles can be read in any depth online. However, Jeff Bezos himself makes them really tangible. The following video gives a very good insight:
Video summary of the Amazon Leadership Principles - presented by Jeff Bezos