Amazon Leadership Principle 15: Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer

Introduction to the Principle

The principle ‘Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer’ is about raising the bar each day. It is about working every day to make Amazon a safe, productive, diverse, and just company. It is about listening to others and not just working strictly all the time, but also having fun when working. Leaders are expected to watch over others, help them be successful, help them grow, and ensure they are having a little fun at work.

Amazon’s View on This Principle

The following quote shows how Amazon thinks about the principle ‘Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer’:

“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.”

Connection to Other Principles

This leadership principle extends the ideas of the principle ‘Hire and Develop the Best.’ It extends the responsibilities of leaders. Leaders should care about how their team is doing, and they should surround themselves with people who perform well to help themselves grow.

Key Elements of the Principle

This principle emphasizes the importance of:

Safety: Leaders should care about the safety of their employees and be aware of the workers at risk of accidents.
Diversity: Leaders should work to make their team more diverse.
Justice: Leaders should behave in a morally right way and be fair in their judgment.
Fun: Leaders should try to make work fun for themselves and their employees.
Empathy: Leaders should understand what their employees feel and take time to learn their perspective.

What This Looks Like in Action

People who strive to be the Earth’s best employer will create an environment of safety, diversity, justice, fun, and empathy. They will care about their employees and work to understand their perspective. They will help their team have fun at work, and they will also help their employees succeed.

Interview Preparation Tips

In an interview, you should have stories prepared for all the things that fall under the principle ‘Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer’: safety, diversity, justice, fun, empathy, productivity, and managing different levels of performance. You need to be able to answer questions about all those skills.

Sample Interview Questions

What measures have you implemented to improve the safety of employees?
Tell me about a time when you created a team. Did you take diversity into account? How did you balance different skills?
How do you know when something is right or wrong? What does being a just person mean to you?
Tell me about things you have done to make employees excited about work.
When have you given feedback to help someone on your team? Did you end up significantly helping them?
Who was one person whom you chose to help develop, even though they weren’t being successful?
Describe a time when you created a change at work that was supposed to help you or your coworkers. What was the change and what was the result?

Final Advice for Interviews

When you answer questions about the principle ‘Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer,’ you should show that you care about safety, work to create a more diverse team, recognize strong and weak performers, and help your team grow. You also need to show that you can make work more fun for your team members.