Obsess over customers, ignore the stock market and know the difference between good and bad failure are among the Amazon leader’s leadership maxims
In building one of the world’s biggest and most influential companies, Jeff Bezos developed a distinct leadership ethos—one he often ruminated on in his annual letters to Amazon.com shareholders, other writings and interviews.
His management principles over nearly three decades at Amazon’s helm have touched on everything from sleep (get eight hours) to when best to have meetings (not before 10 a.m.) The common thread through his maxims has been the emphasis on staying relentlessly innovative, a philosophy that has fueled Amazon’s dominance across multiple industries as well as its hard-charging work culture.
Here are some of his most influential leadership lessons and other nuggets of advice:
Make a small number of high-quality decisions
Mr. Bezos says he goes to bed early, rises early, and schedules “high IQ” meetings before lunch, all in the service of making a few clear, smart decisions each day, he told an audience at the Economic Club of Washington in 2018. “If I have three good decisions a day, that’s enough,” he said. “They should just be as high quality as I can make them.”
