Every individual has values when it comes to their work. From what drives them to the ethics they maintain, their journey is greatly dependent on the values they set for themselves. Here, we will discuss the Amazon leadership principles that have been led down by the company, to help you dig deeper into the values you have in terms of work. Find out all about it, as you read ahead and become aware of the values you hold.
Do you value include commitment, honesty, and the desire to innovate? What are the companies you’re associated with? Do these organizations follow a set of principles and values? Do they put those across their employees and do they follow them diligently?
When your values are strong and determined, you are closer to success. The gigantic business of Amazon has its own set of leadership principles and they let others know of it. These values include decision-making, brainstorming, problem-solving, hiring, and more.
People looking forward to having a job at Amazon has to prepare themselves with the leadership principles. If you’re already associated with people who work in the company, you will be able to analyze the Amazon leadership principles in them.
Amazon Leadership Principles
If you’re trying to craft your personal values or go in an interview at Amazon, you will need the following principles. These are 14 Amazon Leadership Principles that the company works towards every day to get better and stronger every day:
1. Customer obsession
According to Amazon, leaders work backwards, so their primary focus is customers. They work day and night to retain customer’s trust. Even when they pay important tom competitors, they’re primarily obsessed with customers.
2. Ownership
Leaders are no different from owners. Their vision foresees the long-term goals but they don’t compromise on the long-term value for short-term outcomes. Leaders work on behalf of the entire and don’t limit themselves to the team they’re handling. These people never ignore a certain task saying they’re not responsible for it.
3. Invest and simplify
The leaders only expect innovation from their team but also gives them cues to simplify the process. They are aware of the external factors and keep searching for new ideas. They don’t limit themselves to things like ‘this is not invented here’. Leaders also accept the fact that creating something new can be misunderstood but still work on it to prove themselves.
4. Are Right, A Lot
This is one of the most talked about Amazon Leadership Principles. It means that leaders are usually right or have to be right. They need to have strong judgments and have smart instincts. They look forward to diverse approaches and work towards disconfirming their belief.
5. Learn and be curious
Leaders never get bored of learning something new. They find ways to improve themselves and are curious about possibilities and ways to explore those.
6. Hire and develop the best
People always depend on leaders to hire or promote employees who deserve. They need to recognize talent, willingness, and what people can offer to an organization. Leaders develop more people to become leaders and take their roles seriously to coach others.
7. Insist on highest standards
Every leader has high standards and there might be people who think that the standards are unreasonably high. Every leader needs to keep raising the bar in order to drive their team towards quality work. They make sure that defects are not carried forward and problems are solved not kept fixed.
8. Think big
When people think small, they’re only trying to fulfill themselves. Leaders must create and put across a strong direction to inspire great results. Leaders think differently but their main motive is to serve customers better and offer exclusivity.
9. Bias for action
Time is important for everyone and speed is important for every business. Many actions and decisions can be reversed without extensive studies. Leaders calculate and value risk taking.
10. Frugality
The key to accomplish better is doing it with less. Leaders constrain breed resourcefulness and promote self-sufficiency. There is nothing great about increasing headcount, budget, or even adding fixed cost. It is all about maximum utilization of resources as that yield best profits.
11. Earn trust
Leaders are attentive, candid, and respectful. They’re self-critical verbally even if that is embarrassing or awkward. Leaders don’t feel that their team is the best. They always set higher benchmarks to ensure more productivity.
12. Dive deep
Every leader makes sure that they are aware of every level of work. They stay connected to details, keep their audits updated, and are skeptical in terms of metrics. They are always at every task in order to know what’s happening at every level of work.
13. Have backbone to disagree and commit
Every leader must be able to challenge decisions respectfully when they disagree to something. Doing so might be uncomfortable and exhausting, but they need to do it anyway. Every lead must have conviction and be tenacious. They don’t compromise for social cohesion. Once the leader is determined they commit to it wholly.
14. Deliver results
Every leader focuses on the main inputs of the business and deliver those with right quality and timely fashion. Even when there are setbacks, they get over it, improve, and never settle.
Amazon Leadership Principles Interview Process
There is a certain kind of preparation everyone needs before an interview. You might think you know it all and sometimes you probably do. But that’s not usually enough as only skill set will not help you get a job at Amazon.
Just like most other American organization, this retail giant depends a lot on behavioral questions. They will ask candidates many questions related to the amazon leadership principles in order to see how much you think like them. Every business needs likeminded people who have similar approaches towards getting work done. Here, we will help you understand what the behavioral questions are and how to get through them.
What are behavioral interview questions?
Behavioral questions are a way to dig deeper into your personal lives for the perfect background check. For example, when, where, and how have you used your skill that the interviewer finds most important for the job role. How did you respond to challenges similar to the ones you might face in your new job role. People usually ask behavioral questions to get specific details about you and how you work.
The typical behavioral interview question invites you to talk and gives you an opening like ‘tell me about the tine…” or “give me an idea of…” or “what would you do if…” – Almost every firm nowadays insist on adding behavioral questions in an interview. Do you know why? This is because asking about your previous behavior might help interviewers hire managers. They get a sense of how you might react to similar circumstances depending on your skills and smartness.
Tips to Answer behavioral questions at Amazon
Amazon interviews work a lot on behavioral questions. They also want to find out how much you agree and follow the Amazon leadership principles. Here are some tips of their hiring process to prepare you for what’s coming in:
1. Take cues from your job description
Then job you’re applying for will have a description. Whether you find it on LinkedIn.com or someone recommends it to you, there is got to be some idea you know of what they expect. Of course, it has to match with your skillset and experience. But there are still some things curated just to have a specific expectation.
The job description can give you an idea about the behavioral questions that they can ask. It is important to take some time to go through the review of your job. You need to do your research about the company, the work culture, and so on.
You need to identify the skills of that of a successful candidate and speculate about behavioral questions that relate to the skills you have. Based on this, the interviewer might ask you questions that you should be prepared for anyway.
2. Keep a note of the 14 Amazon Leadership Principles
The Amazonians base their work and efficiency on these principles. Whether they are planning new projects, deciding what is best for customers, or recruiting people, these will always be at the back of their mind. Thus, when you answer behavioral questions, you have to tie your answer to one of the 14 principles.
3. Use stories as an answer
In order to smartly answer behavioral question, you have to skin stories around them. It might be a story that relates to your previous work experience or the skills you have developed. You need to structure your stories and engage your listeners. You have to be specific when you speak in order to quantify your success. Also, you need to bring in numbers, client conversions, names, and other relevant information.
4. Keep answers short and crisp
The stories you tell should not be long-winded that makes an interviewer feel like its bedtime. The answers must be completed within 1 to 2 minutes. The people hearing what you say should be interested in it and not cut you off from the middle.
Every interviewer will have at least one leadership principle to evaluate from you. You need to figure out how you explain that you’re on the same page with them, through your answers. Terms like ‘value customers’ or ‘paying attention to customers’ or ‘being customer oriented’ must be used instead of the direct term of ‘customer obsession’.
5. Should look like you’ve mugged up
Everyone who goes in an interview at Amazon is supposed to have an idea about the Amazon Leadership Principles. If you’re going to blurt out words like ‘customer obsession’ instead of ‘customer orientation’ they will know you’ve done your homework.
On one end, they will know that you know what they expect from you as an Amazon employee. But someone will only want to recruit you if they know you can convert your homework into productive action. You have to be convincing about how you imply the Amazon Leadership Principles in the work you do and not how much you remember them.
Probable questions asked by Amazon hiring managers
Here are some of the questions you might be asked when you’re giving an interview at Amazon:
- Tell us about a challenge you overcame when the way ahead wasn’t certain
- Give us an example on how you worked hard to meet your client’s expectations
- An example of something you tried to do but failed
- Tell us about an initiative you took
- Example of times you have motivated others
- An example of how you delegated a certain project efficiently
- Tell us about a time you coached other people
- Example of time when you used your research skills to solve problems
- Explain an incident where you could resolve a customer problem and how it worked out
- An example of a time you took risk, failed, and how did you cope
- Times when you thought a business opportunity could improve ROI. How did you determine these were connected
- What keeps you inspired
- How to you acquire new ideas and learn new things
- How to innovate at work
- Example of a time when your company performed poorly
- How would you handle a situation when there are three people in queue to get help from you
- Tell us about a time when you played it smart to save money for your company
- How did you earn people’s trust
- How did you get through a difficult interaction at work
- Amazon leadership principle that you relate most with
- How can you resonate with ‘Are right, a lot’
- How did you overcome obstacles and offer results
Final thoughts
These were some of the tips that will help you get through a tough interview with Amazon. If you know these and you can imply them too, you could be an Amazonian soon!
