Jeff Bezos turned his book selling company Amazon into an ‘everything store’. Amazon dominates the world’s market, and Jeff Bezos is currently the richest man in the world. Bezos’ success story is one of determination and a unique leadership style which took Amazon to the next level.

These are some of the things that sets apart Bezos’ leadership style from others.

He expects more from his employees

Jeff Bezos is known to have high expectations for his employees. In 1999, Amazon had around 500 employees for answering emails, and each employee was expected to answer 12 emails per minute. Having very high expectations for his employees means that Amazon runs very efficiently and effectively in its operation. This is obvious to most, with Amazon famously being able to make same day deliveries in over 12 different US cities.

Treat the customer as king

This might seem obvious to a service that caters towards customers, but Bezos’ takes it to another level. Bezos focuses on customer satisfaction metrics, putting a great deal of focus on keeping the customer happy. Amazon is so focused on this, they specifically have employees working solely on customer satisfaction research, finding out that a 0.1 second delay on a loading page lowers customer activity. By focusing so much on customer satisfaction, Amazon has been able to develop a company that ranks high on the University of Michigan’s retail customer satisfaction survey every year. This focus on customer satisfaction ultimately shaped their success.

Jeff Bezos’ leadership style is unique, and helped to create what Amazon is today. It focuses on customer satisfaction, as well as high expectations from his employees. This combination of traits is what shaped Amazon to what it is today, and turned Jeff Bezos into the richest man in the world.

Amazon is one of the most well-known brands in the world. It is famous for delivering on its promises, whether that be through same day delivery using drones or achieving high projections and goals consistently. Amazon uses a variety of leadership principles, chiefly implemented by CEO and visionary Jeff Bezos. These leadership principles are what have put Amazon on the forefront of the business industry, and are instrumental in its past and continued success.

These are some of the principles that make Amazon the king of leadership strategy.

Strong customer focus

What sets Amazon apart from so many companies is its very high focus on customers. Customer satisfaction is a big objective for Amazon, and employees work meticulously to find out customer satisfaction through trends and data driven research. Competitors are looked out for, but customers are obsessed over, giving Amazon very few viable competitors.

Ownership and responsibility

Leaders within Amazon take not only the responsibility of their role, but for the whole company. Decisions are made on behalf of the entire company rather than as an individual. Goals are set for the long term and is not sacrificed for short term results.

Hire and train the best people for the roles

Amazon has high expectations for its employees, and the bar is set high. Talent is recognised, and only these people are chosen to be hired and developed at Amazon. Coaching others is taken seriously by leaders, in order to create leaders for the future.

In summary, Amazon has numerous leadership principles that are crucial for its continued success. These principles are adhered to by the whole company, and its these unique leadership principles and strategies that sets Amazon apart from the rest of the competition, and is ultimately why they are at the top of the market.

Bill Gates is without a doubt a leader, managing his company Microsoft and being at the forefront of the age of technology. He is not what you would normally expect from a leader’s background, dropping out of university and taking multiple high level risks based on intuition rather than what was taught to him. Regardless, he managed to become one of the richest men in the world, and create a brand that has its hand in every tech related product on Earth. He had a strong vision for what Microsoft should be, and a passion for the work he was undertaking. This allowed him to be a great leader.

These are some of the leadership traits of Bill Gates.

Vision

Bill Gates had a clear vision of what he wanted Microsoft to be. By having that bigger picture constantly in his mind, he was able to make the right decisions to push the company in the direction he wanted it to go. He uses steps to approach his goal, rather than going from one end straight to the other.

Focus

To get to where Bill Gates is now, and to build a company like Microsoft, requires sheer focus. Gates focused on what he knows he can do well, which was software, and used this to create something that the industry would become reliant on. In using pure focus to achieve this, he dominated the industry.

Generosity

Bill Gates is a well-known philanthropist, starting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in order to reduce extreme poverty and improve the lives of people around the world. Giving away a large sum of his wealth, Gates is undoubtedly a generous leader.

These are some of the traits of Bill Gates’ leadership style. He has an unlikely background for a leader, however he is undoubtedly one, building Microsoft from the ground up to become one of the richest men in the world.