Definition
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.
Explained by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
So, this is one of our newer two leadership principles. And it’s really a leadership principle that’s broad and could be interpreted lots of different ways.
And indeed, sometimes people do interpret it lots of different ways. As a company, we can’t decide to be all things and to do all things for everybody at the company. And so, there are times when employees will want us to pursue a certain tack and if we don’t do it, they say, well, if you’re really Earth’s Best Employer, you would have done that. And of course, you can’t do all of those things.
So, I thought I would tell you what I think of as the best possible place to work for employees. I think that working at a place whose mission is to make customers’ lives easier and better every day is very inspiring. Not just saying it, but doing it. Walking that walk.
Then a company that’s willing to not only make customers’ lives better and easier every day, but that is also able and willing to do it on a very large scale. If you think about the number of customers that you impact. And then a company that’s willing to invent and to invest and to bet. It’s not as inspiring, at least to me, to work at a company that’s running the same playbook for many years at a time. Being willing to look at what customers care about and invent on their behalf is pretty inspiring.
And then being able to commit to those investments for long periods of time. Not running away the first time you see any lack of traction or any problems. Really working through how to get to the right solution for customers and for the business.
And then doing all that at a place where you have a group of people that’s smart, passionate, and motivated and trying to work together as a team and has a passion about the mission that we’re pursuing together. To me, that’s what constitutes a great place to work. And Amazon is very unusual in being so compelling in all those dimensions.
Now are there things that we can do better for employees to be a better place to work? Unquestionably. And there’s many of them. Ranging from how we can make it even safer in our fulfillment network for our employees to how we can train and improve our managers so that they develop our teammates’ careers the right way to continue to have a more diverse and inclusive employee base and set of teammates.
There’s lots we can do to keep getting better. We will not be bored anytime soon. But I think it’s a pretty amazing place to work, but with ways that we’re going to keep getting better.