To be honest, when I hear about “leadership principles”, or any other sort of corporate kool-aid value system, I get upset. I think it’s because I had really terrible jobs all through my 20s where I had to snuff out part of myself in order to acquiesce to these norms. I hated doing that. I found it so difficult to pretend like I cared, and I was often very bitter in those jobs.
I think now, my perspective has matured and shifted a little bit. I am still committed to my own truth and to being myself, but I am willing to play the game. It was inspiring to hear from Margaret about her experiences actually, because she really put it nicely. She said that she focused on Customer Obsession, because that was an actual area of overlap between her values and the company’s values. I think that’s key. Where do my strengths actually align with the leadership principles? Determining that would in effect be working with the current rather than against it. That would be a departure from my old habits of cynicism.
With respect to Amazon’s company leadership principles, I think the three most relevant to me are:
- Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
- Insist on the Highest Standards
- Customer Obsession
It sounds kind of contrarian, but it’s honestly true that for the corporate/professional white collar style jobs I had in my 20s, I felt like I was constantly arguing with my bosses to maintain a meager baseline of quality in my organization’s work. I have always been good at sticking to my guns when I feel like the work produced is not up to par. To fight in this way has caused me a lot of heartache in the past, but I suppose it is a strength if you look at it according to these leadership principles.
The hardest of these principles for me to adopt would have to be “Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility”. It’s simply too kool-aidy. It would feel like I’m lying through my teeth if I had to pretend to profess this value in the context of a company where my primary goal is to make a living. All of the others, I think I could find a context in which they aligned with my actual values as a person, but this one is in direct contradiction with how I feel about Amazon, and corporations in general.
That said, I have no qualms about working for a corporation like Amazon. But I think I would have to meet in the middle by picking and choosing those company values that I can realistically heed without feeling like I’m betraying myself.