“On the details, we at Amazon are always flexible, but on matters of vision we are stubborn and relentless.”
2020 Shareholder Letter, Jeff Bezos
Widely copied, the Amazon leadership principles are considered to be the driving force behind Amazon’s business success.
The Amazon leadership principles are embedded in day to day life, from interviewing to reviews to employees canvassing for additions to support company culture.
This article will take you through each of Amazon’s leadership principles one by one, explaining what they mean and their purpose they serve in Amazon’s culture.
If you’re a manager or a founder, you’ll uncover useful lessons as you look to understand company culture best practices and develop your own principles to empower your employees to drive business success.
If you’re interviewing at Amazon this guide will help you prepare for Amazon leadership principles interview questions. You’ll understand what the Amazon leadership principles stand for, and which behaviors you should demonstrate during your interview.
Amazon use a technique called behavioral interviewing to uncover candidate skills. Check out our Amazon Behavioral Interview Question Guide as well.
Introduction to the Amazon leadership principles
Amazon’s leadership principles are the most famous company leadership principles in the world.
Leadership principles are written and approved by Jeff Bezos and his S (senior) team. 10 leadership principles were introduced in 2002, and there are currently 16 Amazon leadership principles.
For a company like Amazon which is composed of many small autonomous teams, they provide infrastructure for individuals to make the right sort of decision for Amazon.
“[Amazon leadership principles] are the building blocks of culture at Amazon; they set the standard for how we should work with each other as a group of employees and they maintain standards and consistency across our many functions and geographies. The Leadership Principles allow us to interact with each other or approach problems with the same mindset and expectations. They have been integral for scaling growth successfully.”
Liz Jones, Bar Raiser at Amazon
The Amazon leadership principles provide a framework for individuals at a company to act within and make decisions every day. They ensure they move faster, focus on some goals over others and encourage innovation.
Why Amazon has leadership principles
There are multiple different ways for companies to describe their goals, objectives and operating culture. Mission, vision and values is one popular framework, but other methods include company purpose, a brand promise statement or principles.
Amazon’s primary vision statement is ‘to be Earth’s most customer-centric company’. In 2021, Jeff Bezos added another vision statement, which is ‘Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work’.
However it is the Amazon leadership principles that really guide their teams day to day.
The reason is that principles are a great company culture tool. They’re more prescriptive than other statements, but they’re also more actionable and can be more easily embedded in day to day company life.
By selecting principles over the other possible frameworks, Bezos was looking to create ‘laws’ or ‘guidelines’ that would govern company and individual behavior. He was also seeking to ensure clarity over what to do and why, in a very focused way.
How the Amazon Leadership Principles are used
[At Amazon] all the culture seems to be “golden nonsense” — like “customer obsession” — which company shouldn’t be obsessed by their customers?
But at the same time, it’s different. It’s different in the sense that those principles, unlike in most other companies, are not overlooked. Instead, they are practiced in every day’s work.”
Unlike most organizations, whose mission or values can be hard to find, or written down in a company handbook and swiftly forgotten, the Amazon leadership principles are widely discussed across their investor communications, blogs and social channels. Employees report that they really do shape thinking at the company.
“A tremendous deal of thought has gone into the choice and articulation of these principles that form the core of the way EVERYTHING runs at Amazon. And I mean, EVERYTHING. …The principles are embodied in the natural way of thought and the common language spoken on a day-to-day basis by Amazonians regardless of function, domain, role, level, business model or target market.”
A Arun Prasath, PE/Eng Director at Google; former PE @ Amazon, Director @Walmart, Quora
Amazon leadership principle behavior
Overall when seeking to prepare for Amazon leadership principle interview questions, or when looking to emulate the famous principles, it’s useful to understand that Amazon’s focus is on behavior.
The Amazon leadership principles seek to prove a roadmap and rules for the behavior Amazon wants its employees to exhibit. The belief is that if Amazon employees exhibit these behaviors, this provides the underlaying engine that drives the company’s success.
They test for these behaviors in interviews using behavioral interview questions. By asking about how a candidate behaved in the past when confronted with certain types of situation, behavioral interview questions seek to uncover how they will behave in the future. Amazon therefore asks behavioral interview questions focused on seeking to understand if candidates exhibit behaviors that align to Amazon’s leadership principles.
They also performance manage employees according to how their behavior embodies the principles once they work at the company.
How to prepare for Amazon leadership principle interview questions
Here are some techniques you can employ to prepare for Amazon leadership principle interview questions:
- Get comfortable with behavioral interviewing: understand what it is, how to answer well and practice honing your answers with an interview preparation partner
- Understand the Amazon leadership principles in depth: don’t assume you know what they all mean; get to know them well and understand which actions demonstrate or embody principles
- Perform a role mapping exercise: take the job description and highlight the skills, capabilities and critically Amazon leadership principles that this role requires
- Use a sample or indicative list of Amazon leadership principle interview questions: understand the types of questions an interviewer might ask and map your experience and tailor your presentation to show that you have those qualities
Check out our guide to prepping Amazon behavioral interview questions
Free interview cheatsheet: 92 example Amazon leadership principles interview questions
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Understanding Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles
How to read the Amazon Leadership Principles
When preparing for Amazon leadership principles interview questions there are some common mistakes that people make. Swerve these by following these steps:
Pay attention to the behavioral articulation of the Amazon Leadership Principle
Every Amazon leadership principle has an accompanying text. It’s as important to understand this behavioral articulation as it is to know the Amazon leadership principle headline. This is because Amazon’s leadership principles don’t quite stand for what you might think they do when you first read them. The devil is in the detail. In the excerpts below we’ve highlighted the keywords to pay attention to.
Don’t cherry pick the ones you like and ignore the others
The Amazon leadership principles are designed to work together as a suite, and for certain principles to balance other principles.
For example, Bias for Action is balanced by Insisting on the Highest Standards and Dive Deep – you can’t quickly rush into bad decisions, but you should strive to make great decisions fast.
When you’re preparing for Amazon leadership principle interview questions, it’s key to understand that while your spiky strengths in some areas of the principles will be noted, you need to also test well across the spectrum of principles. When you’re preparing for those intimidating Amazon leadership principle interview questions, make sure you map your experience and capabilities to every principle.
Amazon Leadership Principles are a philosophy not a checklist
The Amazon leadership principles are intended to cover the full spectrum of possible situations that a member of the company might find themselves in, and to provide a map for they should act or what they should decide. Think of the Amazon Leadership Principles as a full mental model, not a list.
“The more I’ve worked with them [Amazon’s Leadership Principles] and had to measure them in others, I think it’s better to think about them as a framework for how to make decisions when there isn’t authority around. If we’re a thousand ships tied together, it’s a method for making good decisions personally or for your little ship. They’re a large part of why we can have so many ships moving at the same time moving in so many directions.”
Let’s now deep dive each of the Amazon leadership principles, paying particular attention to the highlighted keywords in the behavioral articulation of the Amazon leadership principle.
In addition if you click on the link in every Amazon leadership principle title, you’ll be taken to a Youtube video where Amazon leaders talk you through it.
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The first seven of the 16 Amazon Leadership Principles
“Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.”
Customer obsession is Amazon’s north star, and as such is enshrined both in the mission and the leadership principles. Its position at the top of Amazon’s leadership principle list is purposeful.
Leaders: Due to Amazon’s de-centralized, modular operating model, whereby lots of small, autonomous teams add up to a cohesive whole, the word ‘leader’ is key. Amazon wants everyone in the business to act as a leader and owner; because they are given a lot of autonomy and their own domain. Amazonian employees are given single target goals, like ‘Increase profit margin by 30% in xx category’, and it’s up to them to figure out the what and the how.
Working Backwards: Internal to Amazon there is a process known as ‘working backwards’ from the customer. This means that before any product is built or shipped, the team define which need is most important to the customer and how that product will serve it (in an exciting, big picture, innovative way). They articulate this by writing a mock press release (sometimes called a PR/FAQ) for the product which serves as the PRD. Products which have been through this process include AWS, Alexa and Echo.
Customer trust: Customer trust indices are routinely reviewed and consulted within the company and mentioned in investor communications. Winning customer trust is about service excellence and continuing innovation to meet needs customers have not yet discovered. It’s key to proactively anticipate new user needs and serve them with products or services. That can’t be done if existing products have errors, or the focus is on reactivity. It’s also unacceptable if customers have a poor experience, as Amazon believes that customers will only stay loyal to Amazon as long as they are the best option. This Amazon leadership principle is so stringent that sometimes Amazon maintains unprofitable, labor intensive services because a couple of hundred people continue to use them.
Competitor attention: This keyword outlines how employees should think about competitors versus customers. It warns against ‘Me Too’ product thinking. By watching competitors to see if their products or services better match customer needs, but remaining focused on true service innovation, Amazonians can balance competitor audits with their north star of best in class customer service. Should they find gaps in service relative to competitors, Amazon works swiftly to close those gaps.
Obsess over customers: Amazon expects employees to review various customer feedback sources as part of their roles, and to raise issues within the company. In the past it was mandatory for Amazon managers to spend time working in the customer service call center on a regular basis – behavior Jeff Bezos modelled himself.
Obsess over customers does not mean relentlessly shipping things customers say they want. Jeff Bezos has described customers as ‘beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied’. Sometimes it means going against what customers say in order to provide them with something better that they don’t know that they want yet.
“Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job.””
Owners: This Amazon leadership principle is all about accountability and autonomy. Employees at Amazon should act as though Amazon was their company and they have the best long term future for the business at heart.
Long term: When Jeff Bezos was a child, his parents rented a house, and discovered that the previous tenants had nailed their Christmas tree to the floor. It was an early example of how short term expediency can affect long term value. The Ownership principle is intended to encourage employees to ask themselves: ‘Is this decision the one which makes the most sense and drives the most value in the long term, or does it actually sacrifice long term value?’
Entire company: The principle encourages employees to avoid siloed thinking, whereby they make decisions which are right for them and their team – but wrong for the company overall. Describing impact in terms of your own team benefits is a red flag at Amazon, and employees are encouraged to reframe their thinking to describe the company benefit instead.
Not my job: Amazon is a team sport A sense of ownership sometimes means stepping up to do or deliver against something which is broken or needs to be done. Amazonians are encouraged to demonstrate full end to end responsibility: even when that means admitting that something has gone wrong or going beyond their job description.
“Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.”
Jeff Bezos has stated multiple times that he would prefer the title ‘inventor’ to the title of ‘billionaire’.
Amazon’s goal is to invent products, services and solutions that facilitate global leadership in customer service, a moving target.
“Of all the Fortune 500 companies in 2000, now only 50% remain [in the Fortune 500]. If we look back 50 years instead of 20 years, the ratio is 17%. It’s hard for any company to sustain itself for a long period of time…Invent[ing] in desperate time[s] is already too late. That’s why invent and reinvent are key to any business.”
Working like an Amazonian: Leadership Principles Explained — 3. Invent and Simplify, Tiexin Guo
Innovation and Invention: Should Amazon’s small autonomous teams not invent, parts of Amazon’s service would lag. They are given permission to be inspired from multiple sources, and pursue projects which might take multiple years to pay off. Inventions can be small, new, elegant solutions, or they can be groundbreaking new products. The purpose of this Amazon leadership principle is to articulate an ethos of continuous improvement over the status quo.
Ways to simplify: As an organization grows, complexity can lead to entropy: This is too hard to do, we need to do something smaller. This Amazon leadership principle is an encouragement to find simple, elegant solutions that break existing paradigms and allow the company to move faster.
“Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.”
Right a lot: Amazonians frequently find themselves working in first mover spaces.
Amazon leadership principle interview questions are looking to uncover individuals who will have success working in environments where there is no model to follow.
Work to disconfirm their beliefs: This Amazon leadership principle is about judgement. It’s less about the the leader’s initial hypothesis being correct, but more about the skills to refine or discard ideas. Confirmation bias is actively discouraged. The job of the leader is to get to the right idea for customers, not necessarily to have the right idea themselves. They should be tenacious in pursuit of the right answer and continuously question the evolving hypothesis. This Amazon leadership principle is especially tested for at leadership level.
“Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.”
Never done learning: Learning can mean new skills or learning from failure. Technology is a fast moving industry, the internet is 40 years old, and what worked yesterday probably won’t work tomorrow. Everyone, including the CEO, is expected to keep developing.
Curious about new possibilities: Curiosity is tightly tied to Bezos’ belief in the power of ‘wandering’. Wandering for Bezos is allowing the brain to question and roam in the belief that this type of guided, business curiosity allows for the identification of innovative solutions and outside returns.
“From very early on in Amazon’s life, we knew we wanted to create a culture of builders – people who are curious, explorers. They like to invent. Even when they’re experts, they are “fresh” with a beginner’s mind. They see the way we do things as just the way we do things now. …
Sometimes (often actually) in business, you do know where you’re going, and when you do, you can be efficient. Put in place a plan and execute. In contrast, wandering in business is not efficient … but it’s also not random. It’s guided – by hunch, gut, intuition, curiosity, and powered by a deep conviction that the prize for customers is big enough that it’s worth being a little messy and tangential to find our way there. Wandering is an essential counter-balance to efficiency. You need to employ both. The outsized discoveries – the “non-linear” ones – are highly likely to require wandering.”
“Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.”
Raise the performance bar (or average level) with every hire or promotion, thereby continuously increasing the effectiveness and performance of each team, including the manager. Amazon tries to replenish internal talent with new hires who are better than 50% of incumbents.
Exceptional talent: Identify top performers and (exhibiting the Amazon leadership principle of Ownership) allow them to migrate to other parts of the organization where there’s need.
Take seriously their role in coaching others: Invest time in developing others as a leader in order to benefit the whole organization. There are two methods for this: feedback, and performance management.
Invent mechanisms: In situations where on the job development is limited (such as in fulfilment centers) create development opportunities in other ways. An example is the Amazon Career Choice program, which seeks to train hourly employees in high demand skill sets, such as data science.
“Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.”
Relentlessly high standards: Jeff Bezos has said that ‘The keys to success are patience, persistence, and obsessive attention to detail.’ Similar to the development principle, this Amazon leadership principle puts the onus on managers to raise the bar consistently on what good looks like.
Continually raising the bar: Some operational forcing functions to ensure high standards have been introduced. Examples of processes within Amazon include:
- Bar Raiser at interview stage – this is an appointed extra-curricular position within Amazon, whereby someone outside the hiring team who does a lot of interviews across different teams is included in the interview process. Their goal is to be an objective third party perspective on whether the candidate is a cultural fit. It’s not uncommon for conversations with the Bar Raiser to be particularly focused on Amazon leadership principle interview questions.
- Inspections and audits are frequently conducted across multiple departments and functions
- Daily surveys are sent out in order to create a ‘speak up’ culture
Problems are fixed so they stay fixed: The final line is rooted in lean manufacturing. The idea is that rather than fixing defects in products at the end of the manufacturing process that you go up the factory line to fix the root causes. This means that when it is fixed, it stays fixed – even if it’s harder to do. Should an Amazon employee find something broken, rather than walking away, because it’s not their responsibility they have an obligation to go up the chain to fix it.
The second seven of the 16 Amazon Leadership Principles
“Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.”
Self-fulfilling prophecy & look around corners: This Amazon leadership principle says: don’t be hemmed in by the now; treat those constraints as a stepping off point for how you could innovate. It’s a mash up of various other principles: high standards, be curious, invent and simplify, take ownership, obsess over the customer – and really means go above and beyond and do the best thing.
An example of this Amazon leadership principle in action was when Amazon started their own freight airline to ship products. Today they have a global air cargo network. At the time it seemed like an extreme solution for the volume: but in the long term it resulted in a scalable solution to the problem of how to move freight internationally.
“Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.”
Many decisions and actions are reversible: Jeff Bezos is a believer in high velocity decision making. In Bezos’ decision making framework there are two types of decisions: Type 1 decisions, and Type 2 decisions.
The difference between Type 1 and Type 2 decisions at Amazon
Type 2 decisions should be taken swiftly by small autonomous teams. Teams need to understand the difference between the two decision types, but when it’s a Type 2 decision, they’re encouraged to move fast to execute. They can always roll back later if they’re wrong. Speed is critical in technology and matters especially to Amazon.
However risk taking should be calculated risk taking: speed should not be the only factor.
“Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.”
Constraints breed resourcefulness: Hang on – didn’t we just say leaders had to overcome constraints? That is exactly what this Amazon leadership principle embodies – it’s about not taking the easy route (‘I need a person, I need this, or that’. A constraint is seen as an opportunity to invent; and a lean mindset is designed to keep ‘Day 1’ or start up thinking alive.
This Amazon leadership principle works best in company with other Amazon leadership principles – such as Invent and Simplify or or Ownership. It doesn’t mean don’t ever ask for more resources, but it does say put the time in to understand if more resources is the only viable solution – as opposed to the easy or obvious solution.
It’s also key to think long term when it comes to frugality. Sometimes something which looks cheap today ends up costing a lot in the long run because you miss out on other revenue streams or lose users. Let’s go back to the air freight example. Expensive in the short term, made the business much more valuable in the long term.
“Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.”
Do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume: We have all encountered that person. There’s the person who can’t handle disagreement, and there’s the person who is scared to disagree. The Amazon leader can’t be any of those people. They have to seek the right answer, candidly, politely, but relentlessly.
Jeff Wilkes, former CEO of World Wide Consumer at Amazon states that ‘People will often confuse ‘Earn Trust’ with playing nicely with others’. The high meaning of this Amazon leadership principle is that trust is earned when truth seeking is prioritized over social cohesion.
It’s tough to be challenged but it’s worse to do the wrong thing, and it will help you learn for the future.
“Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.”
Operate at all levels: This Amazon leadership principle is intended to:
- Actively mitigate against a tendency for leaders to stop paying attention to detail, or become hands off as they rise up in the hierarchy
- Ensure leaders understand how they should monitor their teams and implement a data driven, and non hierarchical approach to investigating topics at the deepest level
One of the reasons that managers sometimes devolve to ‘give me the summary’ behavior is that with a larger span of control and many teams and topics beneath them, they simply cannot be across all of the details at all times.
This Amazon leadership principle outlines a technique to avoid missing the key details.
Amazon is clear that they expect leaders to process more detail than other organizations might do, but equally clear that constantly being deep in the weeds is micro-management. The skill is to know when to leave topics alone, and when to investigate in order to not miss details which might lead to bad outcomes.
Metrics and anecdote differ: The Amazon leadership principle embodied by Dive Deep is about the how of critiquing and analyzing metrics presented by sub teams. These could be ad hoc, in one to ones or in more formal processes, such as Amazon’s culture of weekly business reviews. Amazon relies on metrics to run the business, but equally well, it relies on its leaders to ensure those metrics correctly indicate what is really going on.
Therefore this Amazon leadership principle clearly outlines how leaders should review, select and manage metrics. They much interrogated to see if they are the right input and output metrics in the first place. Customer feedback always trumps metrics, and where customer feedback differs, the data has to be interrogated.
Dave Limp, SVP Amazon Devices and Services describes how he reads customer reviews daily on waking up to understand the customer and to know if his metrics are telling the real story.
When analysing the anecdote, it’s important to ask two questions:
- Is the anecdote already captured in the data? If so, it’s a known issue, and you have the information to fix it
- If not, then a deep dive has to occur, to understand the problem completely and from every angle
A deep dive audit should not only occur when something seems off in a weekly business review.
Leaders should be routinely deep diving.
Critically this should not be on the same repetitive cycle, as then it’s expected and can be managed by teams. It’s all about the leader of a team keeping their finger on the pulse of what’s really happening and being able to captain that small boat towards the right direction.
“Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.”
Respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree: Amazon encourages debate, rather than compromise. In an extreme example in the company, they share a story about two people debating the height of a ceiling. The story goes that two people are trying to estimate the height of a ceiling. One says: it’s 10 ft / 3m 5cm tall. The other one says it’s 14ft / 4m 27cm tall. They compromise and decide that the ceiling is 12 ft / 3m 66cm tall. But that’s not the actual height of the ceiling.
The purpose is to illustrate that if you want to get to the right answer, you have to continue to debate to get to the right answer, and not compromise on a consensus view because it’s easier. Debate has to respect, but leaders shouldn’t be shy away from having tough conversations in order to keep refining the debate. Refining the debate means guiding the conversation back to core principles to see where the debate goes. If repetitious cycles occur leaders should innovate to break the deadlock.
Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly: ‘Disagree and commit’ is a phrase that Jeff Bezos is very fond of. This part of the Amazon leadership principle requires everyone to get on board and commit wholly to whatever has been decided. The phrase ‘disagree and commit’ forms a type of contract: you must step up and support the decision, you cannot sabotage it or withdraw, and you can’t go back into the decision making process. Failure of the team to all deliver the decision to the best of their ability results in a worse outcome for customers.
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“Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.”
Deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion: This Amazon leadership principle is about understanding what a good result looks like. It does not mean deliver results at all costs. You can’t deliver a bad experience for customers, or over spend to deliver the results.
It’s clearly linked to the Ownership principle, with the reminder to ‘rise to the occasion and never settle’.
Introduction to the final 2 Amazon leadership principles
The final two of the Amazon Leadership Principles
Jeff Bezos transitioned from CEO of Amazon to Chair of Amazon on July 5th, 2021, a date he chose because it was on July 5th that Amazon incorporated in 1994. Several days before he made the move, Amazon added two new leadership principles. The last time the principles were updated prior to this was in 2015, when Learn and Be Curious was added.
The new Amazon leadership principles were added in the wake of employee petitions citing ‘an underlying culture of systemic discrimination, harassment, bullying and bias against women and under-represented groups’, damaging and repetitive stories about a negative Amazon work culture, reports of injuries in warehouses and backlash post Covid as essential workers found they had once again become expendable, demonstrated via union drives and strike action at multiple fulfilment centers.
The new Amazon leadership principles were introduced in Bezos’ final shareholder letter. It stated that as Chair he would remain involved in embedding these principles at the company and ensuring they are a success.
“Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.”
Safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment: Bezos was directly looking to counter behaviors and outcomes for which the company had received criticism. In terms of concrete initiatives specifically designed to improve working conditions for hourly employees, Bezos committed on the following in his 2020 shareholder letter:
- Programs to mitigate for and manage employee risk of musculoskeletal disorders, such as sprains or injuries caused by repetitive motions. Examples include the WorkingWell program
- Investment into people and materials to ensure greater safety at work
- Higher minimum wages than market
In addition other initiatives included
- Voice of the Associate boards in fulfilment centers, where associates can suggest improvements
- Community building initiatives such as Thanksgiving dinners and fundraisers
- Inclusive hiring goals across all job levels including senior leadership, including publishing diversity data
- Inclusive working environment initiatives across all teams
- The Career Choice initiative
By elevating employee experience to the level of a company principle, employees can expect to be required to model these behaviors. Also key to this initiative was the recognition that Amazon was not yet the Earth’s Best Employer. The ambition reflects on the work to be done.
“We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them.”
“We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect: This Amazon leadership principle embodies the company commitment to be a net positive contributor to local, national and global communities. Key parts include:
- The Climate Pledge, Amazon’s commitment to reach net zero by 2040
- Help for Hunger initiative, where Amazon donates delivery services to food banks and not for profits to help deliver meals
Overall this Amazon leadership principle commits to climate and some social justice principles.
Key lessons from the Amazon Leadership principles for managers
“You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself ” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.
The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.”
There is no denying that Amazon’s leadership principles are highly effective. Numerous stories have been shared, both positively and negatively, about how embedded they are at Amazon.
Given Amazon’s decentralized, modular org chart, the Amazon leadership principles have been credited with Amazon’s continued success at a company scale that most of us can only imagine. There can be no doubt that as an operating model it’s highly effective, and whether or not it’s the right company culture for you is something for you and your Amazon interviewers to determine.
Key lessons for managers and founders to apply when ideating or living their own leadership principles:
- Pick your values, invest and be consistent, put a great deal of effort into articulating them well, and stick to them for many years. Consistency is key.
- Write as a leadership team: don’t outsource to HR or employees. The founder of Amazon wrote these principles to align to his management beliefs, investor proposition and vision. It shows in terms of the alignment of the principles with Amazon’s business model.
- Embed them day to day, from hiring to firing: and walk the talk daily. There’s no point doing the exercise if you then shelve them.
- Adjust as needed: The Amazon leadership principles have been iterated as they have evolved as a company.
- Principles have to be a complimentary, reinforcing suite: The Amazon leadership principles all point in the same direction; despite the volume they are not misaligned or contradictory. Rather they should be seen as re-statements, and more granular articulations of the same values.
Hustle Badger Resources on Amazon
Create a FREE account to access the following templates:
* [Template] Amazon Leadership Principles Interview Cheatsheet (Google Doc)
* [Template] Think Like Jeff Bezos Cheatsheet (Google Doc)
* [Template] Amazon Press Release and FAQs (Notion | Google Doc)
Resources
FAQs
How many leadership principles does Amazon have?
Amazon currently has 16 leadership principles. Check out the full list here. These are the guiding principles around which Amazon operates as a business and organizational culture. Amazon’s leadership principles have evolved over time, with the last two being added in 2015 when Jeff Bezos transitioned from CEO of Amazon to Chair of Amazon.
What are the 14 leadership principles of Amazon?
Amazon currently has 16 leadership principles, having added several to their famous ‘14 principle’ roster. Amazon’s leadership principles are detailed behavioral value statements intended to guide how employees approach their work and the sorts of day to day actions they take in the workplace. They famously include ‘Customer Obsession’, ‘Insist on the Highest Standards’ and ‘Think Big’. For a full list, see here.
What are the Amazon leadership principles interview questions?
The Amazon leadership principles interview questions are behavioral interview questions designed to test for a candidate’s embodiment of Amazon’s leadership principles. They might start with ‘Walk me through an example of a time when’. Get an example list of 92 Amazon leadership principles interview questions here.
How to best answer the Amazon leadership principles interview questions?
To give a great answer to the Amazon leadership principles interview questions:
1. Nail behavioral interviewing techniques: learn how to answer questions using the STAR method comfortably and naturally
2. Take the time to learn the Amazon leadership principles in depth: read through them in detail, including the behavioral articulation of the principle
3. Map the role: Highlight keywords and behavioral traits required for the role, consider your strengths and map your experience to them to be ready to match role requirements
4. Practice with a partner using example Amazon leadership principle interview questions: get comfortable walking people through the relevant parts of your processes and experience when faced with every type of question
