Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Says Earning Employees’ Trust Takes More Than ‘Being Nice’ — Here’s How He Does It

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently spoke in a company video about the successful principles of good leaders.

Jassy said that one important principle is earning trust from your employees — but not in the way that people might think.

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“They sometimes confuse it with being nice to one another or having social cohesion or not challenging each other in meetings. That’s not what we mean,” Jassy said. “What we mean is being honest, authentic, straightforward, listening intently but challenging respectfully if you disagree, and then delivering what you said you would.

Jassy added that, if you want to earn trust, you have to deliver news to employees, good or bad.

“If you say you’ve got something, deliver it,” he said. “If you own something and it’s not going well, be self-critical, and fix it.”

Earning trust is one of Amazon’s 16 leadership principles that founder Jeff Bezos introduced when he began the company in the mid-1990s. Amazon calls the guidelines an “essential tenet” to the inner workings of the company’s operations and values for employees to abide by.

Other principles on the list include “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit,” and “Think Big.” Another principle, “Dive Deep,” means to get involved with the details to deliver results.

Jassy replaced Bezos as CEO in 2020 and has worked for the company for 27 years.

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“I’m still working on it,” Jassy admitted about living out the principles in his day-to-day work life. “People change, competitive dynamics change, products change, technology changes. The Leadership Principles are something you have to constantly work at. When they’re applied well, they’re powerful.”

Amazon was up over 37.4% in a one-year period as of Monday afternoon.