Amazon Leadership Principle Stories and My Style
TL;DR - I took my Amazon story audit and tried to learn something about my own leadership style. More than 50% of my 100+ stories covered the 5 core principles: Earns Trust, Learn & Be Curious, Customer Obsession, Disagree & Commit and Are Right, A Lot. When I looked that the result, I was not surprised. Read to learn more about my self-reflection through the lense of Amazon Leadership principles.
As I prepared for my Amazon inteview, I collected over 100 stories from my 20+ years in product and sorted them by leadership principle. Some of them overlapped and were equally strong stories for multiple leadership principles.
In the end, it didn’t surprise me. I imagine most people who know me would agree that makes sense and is a great description of my core leadership style. This is not to say that I didn’t excel in other areas, but it was an intersting self-reflection exercise nontheless.
Let’s Look ath the numbers:
Let’s Dive into the Top 5
Earns Trust : : 17%
Learn & Be Curious : : 11%
Customer Obsession : : 8%
Disagree & Commit : : 8%
Are Right, A Lot : : 8%
Earns Trust
When I join a team, the first thing I try to do is develop relationships and earn trust by listening and sharing information. I quickly go above and beyond to help out in some tangible way.
Learn & Be Curious
I am curious to a fault. Most people respect it but my curiosity can be intense at time. It is how I come up with great ideas. It is part of why I am so customer obsessed.
Custom Obsession
Any truly good product manger is customer obsessed. That is what makes us standout from other members of a product team. It is the fundamental core of what we do.
Disagree & Commit
I am never afraid to speak out, and I LOVE a good debate. I have been known to play devil’s advocate to help bring out the ideas of others. It is part of why I thrive at Amazon and struggled a bit in Google’s culture of accommodation.
Are Righ, A Lot
This is really about your intuition. With experience comes intuition. I have been working in product for more than 2 decades. I have worked at scale and in startups. I have coached more than 3,000 product managers. This has helped me develop a strong product instant.
I challenge you, if you are preparing for Amazon, what does your list of stories say about your leadership style??
