Leadership Style as a Company Scales

Source: Bush Center
Published: April 2018

Leadership Style as a Company Scales

Circulated: October 9, 2020

Question:

How has your leadership style changed over the years?

Answer by Jeff Bezos:

When the company is 10 or 100 people, I can be involved in every decision, not just the objectives like ‘what are we going to do?’ but the methods like ‘how are we going to do it?’

As a company gets bigger, the CEO or founder cannot be involved in all of those decisions — certainly not in the methods of how things get done. You surely need to change your leadership style as the company scales.

The principles of the company have not changed. I spend more of my time on culture and setting high standards such as customer obsession and inventiveness.

I am kind of a teacher now!