Introduction
Today I am going to discuss one example of a leader and analyze his leadership through Maxwell’s and Greene’s views. They outline the specific qualities that every great leader should have to succeed. In this presentation, I specifically use two books for the analysis: Maxwell’s “The 21 indispensable qualities of a Leader: Becoming the person others will want to Follow” and Greene’s “The 48 Laws of Power”.
Who Is the Leader, According to Maxwell and Greene?
Overall, the two authors agree on many points about which qualities define an effective leader. In other words, according to Maxwell (2007) and Greene (2005), the leader must be primarily an innovative, rational risk-taker and great communicator. However, Greene (2005) seems to emphasize the importance of adaptability and results more compared to Maxwell (2007), who prioritizes integrity and consistency.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the incredible pace and size of Amazon’s expansion and Jeff Bezos’ leadership that led to these results. Amazon is now an undeniable leader in the e-commerce space, also challenging and competing against traditional retail store chains. Amazon is on the course of dominating the retail industry, commanding the supply of every type of goods to customers internationally.
Jeff Bezos was behind the current success of Amazon, and he continues to expand the business through relatively beneficial business decisions. Thus, today I decided to examine the leadership of Bezos and what makes him an effective leader, according to Maxwell and Greene. He fits the descriptions of both writers in terms of his leadership qualities.
Vision
Therefore, I am going to analyze Bezos in terms of these leadership qualities. The first and main quality of Bezos is his vision. According to Maxwell (2007) and Greene (2005), the vision guides the leader. Without the vision, the leader would lack direction and goal. Without the vision, there cannot be a leader.
In other words, the vision is not only a good starting point for the leader but also attracts the following. A clearly defined and presented vision can help leaders to receive funding, investment, and people willing to work for them. In Bezos’ case, his early supporters were mainly his parents, who believed in his vision.
Bezos was convinced of the future of e-commerce during the early days of the Internet when nobody could even imagine such a concept. Many investors and experts predicted the failure of the business in a short amount of time. Despite this fact, Bezos persevered in his concrete vision, and it paid off.
Thus, Amazon succeeded as an early adopter of Internet technology which provided a necessary boost for the company among its competitors. Many companies followed Amazon’s model but failed to capture an integral share of the market because Amazon was ahead of them due to Bezos’ unique vision. On the other hand, businesses like BlockBuster were unsuccessful at switching to the Internet-based platform, dismissing the idea for a long time and lacking a crucial vision for development.
These examples further illustrate the point that the current existence and success of Amazon would not be possible without Bezos’ radical vision. However, Bezos was not only a visionary, but he also was proactive and willing to take action despite the obvious risks.
Initiative
This fact also leads to another element of Bezos’ leadership, an initiative. According to Maxwell (2007), great leaders are active risk-takers and executives of ideas and vision. It is not enough to only have a vision, it is also important to implement its mission and plan effectively and successfully.
As mentioned before, in his decision to launch Amazon on the Internet, Bezos took a great risk going into uncharted territory at that time. He did not stop just at the idea of Amazon as the first e-commerce platform, but he executed it despite the risks. He was not intimidated by the chance of failure and motivated himself and others to accomplish his plans.
The whole success story of Amazon is in taking risks, showing the consistency in this Bezos trait. Another example of risk is the decision to start selling other items aside from books. It was the second major step that led the company to the current market share and profit levels. Amazon would not have grown to the current extent without this important decision.
Moreover, effective calculation of the risk is another side to his initiative quality. All the risks were calculated by Bezos to some degree, which makes him not just a leader but a great leader. For example, when Bezos decided to establish an Amazon platform on the Internet, the Internet was growing at a rate of 2300% a year.
It was clear that the Internet attracted a lot of new users who searched for new ways to engage with its functionality and possibilities of use. Thus, the idea of conveniently ordering products through the Internet was appealing to the majority of people as more people started to use the Internet. Bezos calculated this opportunity and took the risk based on his judgment.
Discernment
This decision also shows another leadership quality described by Maxwell (2007), discernment. It is an ability to make conclusions based on incomplete information. The leaders are often met with situations where they have to decide quickly, relying on limited data, and following their intuitive assumptions. Effective leaders can form the right judgments in these cases.
Bezos managed to make the right conclusion based on the limited information in the case of creating a platform on the Internet. Even though he knew the 2300% rate of the Internet expansion, there was no data on the user’s willingness to purchase the product through the Internet. Bezos had to make a connection between the Internet’s future and the possibility of e-commerce.
However, every leader is eventually surrounded by criticism. Bezos is not the exception, as Amazon and he is faced with plenty of criticism from the working condition to the ethics of their expansion. For an effective leader, it is important to be able to handle this critique in a way that would not harm their project and their image as a leader.
Adaptability
Thus, another leadership quality outlined by Greene (2005) that can help Bezos to overcome the incoming challenges, is adaptability. Bezos, like any great leader, must figure out how to adapt his leadership and business to fit the new demands of the consumers, addressing the criticism. The main reason for this need is that the risk of a decline in future sales is present if the criticism is not managed successfully.
Conclusion
In other words, the consumers, in the end, can prefer alternative options, leaving Amazon in decline. There is also the possibility of government intervention if the state deems any of the issues as being a serious threat to society. This intervention can further deteriorate the business’ bottom line. Therefore, the future of Amazon and Bezos’ leadership will show to what extent Bezos can adapt as a leader. This was a quick overview of the leadership qualities in the example of Jeff Bezos as described by Maxwell (2007) and Greene (2005). I discussed the vision, discernment, initiative, and adaptability of Bezos’ leadership in managing Amazon primarily.
References
Greene, R. (2005). The 48 laws of power. Web.
Maxwell, J. C. (2007). The 21 indispensable qualities of a leader: Becoming the person others will want to follow. HarperCollins Leadership. Web.