Leader is patently someone who is a requisite part of social and professional life and is

mostly imperative while accomplishing a goal through a means of direction of human assistants.

This is the reason why leadership transpires in every formal and informal situation (Goleman,

2004). While leadership in an informal situation does not require authority to lead an utmost

group activities and influence people to work on common goals; leadership in a formal situation

requires authority within an organizational structure and thereby directing the subordinates to

accomplish goals on behalf of the organization.

Exemplary Leadership Model

With an idea of leadership being observed by a set of skills and abilities, the co-authors

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner first coined the Exemplary Leadership Model to discover the

best practices followed by an efficacious leader when they portray a superlative piece of skills.

The authors fortuitously collected thousands of stories from common people when asked to think

of an instance they portrayed leadership experience (Chapman, 2018). With regards to the

differences in gender, age, ethnicity, culture, nationality, and other social factors, all their

personal best stories posit similar patterns of behavior. Therefore, the authors culminated that for

a leader to experience their personal best, they had had to display five fundamental practices and

they are:

Model the Way:

Here, leaders create opportunities for victory by setting calibre and an example for others

to follow. They do this by placing signposts or any sort of helpline and guidance when people

feel hesitant of how to achieve their goals.

Inspire a Shared Vision:

what the organization can become. Working with a passion to make a difference, leaders with

their persuasion and allure, they galvanize people to observe fascinating possibilities for the

future (Kouzes & Posner, 2007).

Challenge the Process:

Here, leaders look for a change by practising innovative ways to uplift the organization

even if they have to face risks. Doing so, leaders also set interim goals for people to value

smaller wins as they approach a larger objective. However, with the risks involved they

sometimes feel disappointment and failure, but they take it as an opportunity to learn (Veto et al.,

2014).

Enable Others to Act:

Here, Leaders believe in fabricating spirited teams and strive them to success by enabling

mutual respect and maintaining dignity. They make people realize their importance of capability

and power.

Encourage the Heart:

Here, Leaders make people realize that they are a champion due to their hard work and

determination (Smith, 2015). Also, there is a unique way of sharing the rewards of their efforts

and success and celebrating accomplishments.

Current Event: Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy to take over in Q3

The article published in CNBC This is a current event in the world that is getting

alarming attention as Jeff Bezos, one of the exceptional entrepreneur and leader who has

achieved triumphs of success with Amazon steps down and plans to leave his post and turn the

helm over to the company’s top cloud executive Andy Jassy. Bezos decided to become the
executive chairman of the Amazon Boards with the quarter ending on 31 December with an

immense record of having $100 billions of sales for the last three months of 2020 (Haselton,

2021). Bezos also wrote a letter to shareholders with a statement “Amazon is what it is because

of invention” and highlighting the company being most innovative and focusing relentlessly

on its customers and highlighting the need of even better vision for they create value for

employees and customers (Pema, 2021). In addition, he is confident that Andy will become an

outstanding leader as Andy has been there at Amazon almost as long as he has.

Applied leadership practice in the article

The article thoroughly explains Jeff Bezos’s being a remarkable leader who encompasses

transformational leadership qualities by setting an example for others to follow and helping

employees to envision an uplifting and electrifying meaningful future. Thereby, with a

comprehensive reading and understanding of the article, I believe the leadership practices that

have precisely been applied are: Model the Way and Inspire a Shared Vision.

Model the Way:

This kind of leadership practice reflects upon the idea of finding one's voice and

affirming shared values and acting on how you encourage others to step on your stones.

Likewise, in the article, Bezos clearly sets an example to follow by clarifying objectives and

personal values to Andy. Bezos undoubtedly has managed to become a victorious leader and has

proven himself as a leader of emulation by leading a team of experts and becoming dominant in

the market for the last 27 years (Gradinaru et al., 2020). Like mentioned prior, he created a

standard of excellence and has set an example to follow with an earning report of its first $100

billion quarter and the company’s stock to hike up nearly 70% in the last 12 months (Soper,

2021). Nevertheless, like the model points out the idea of putting signposts when people are
unsure which path to follow, similarly, Bezos announced that he isn’t going anywhere, instead he

will be supporting the company acting as an executive chairman of Amazon’s board.

Inspire a Shared Vision:

This kind of leadership practice reflects upon the idea of envisioning the future by

galvanizing people by showing them various possibilities and the company's vision to success in

the future. Likewise, in the article, Bezos being a transformational leader with strong passion and

vision communicates his idea to its employees of making Amazon forever leader in the market

(Hamad, 2015). This way he is enlisting his employees to be a part of the company’s vision and

appleadling them to share aspirations. It is evident that everyone in the company is well aware of

the shared vision and giving their best to work with him. Bezos' vision of staying committed

towards Amazon projects and his focus on Bezos Earth Fund is an exemplary one (Schleifer,

2021). Thereby, he announces to turn the helm over to the company’s top cloud executive Andy

Jassy who possesses the same aspiration of setting common goals and even beyond that. Most

importantly Jassy is an eminent visionary leader who thrives to bring his own set of skills to

excite and ennoble possibilities.

Relevance on my experiences

The idea of an exemplary leadership model to liberate the leader in everyone helps one

and other for their professional development and career advancement. Being a Human Resources

Professional, I believe the understanding of the model will help me to stand strong, capable

enough to stay committed to my work. Acting as a leader, I will make sure not to act by hoarding

the roles and responsibilities I entail, rather giving my best to strengthen everyone’s capacity to

deliver utmost productivity and achievement of goals.

practicing transformational leadership. Also it is equally important to shift our attention to setting

an example to follow and envision the future productivity. The idea of leadership practices of

modeling the way and inspiring a shared vision could definitely apply in my work situation as

being at HR, we act as a liaison between management and the employees workforce and most

importantly effectively handle recruitment, interviewing, selection, and hiring processes and

grividences. In addition, setting behavioral standards and exemplifying them in a certain way can

help me to achieve some wins and build momentum in my team. I will also establish a clear vision

before engaging my followers and setting examples for them to follow. Like in the article, I will male

sure to use stimulating and powerful vivid languages to capture the vision to inspire my teammates

and the entire organization.

To reiterate, the understanding of an exemplary leadership model and incorporating the

learning in a professional setting can help any individual to succeed.

Chapman. (2018). Practices of exemplary leadership - Kouzes and Posner. Leadership and

Management Training - BusinessBalls.com. https://www.businessballs.com/leadership-

models/five-practices-of-exemplary-leadership-kouzes-and-posner/

Gradinaru, C., Toma, S. G., Catana, S., & Andrisán, G. (2020). A view on transformational leadership:

The case of Jeff Bezos. Manager, (31), 93-100.

Goleman, D. (2004). What makes a leader.

Hamad, H. (2015). Transformational leadership theory: Why military leaders are more charismatic and

transformational?. International Journal on Leadership, 3.

Haselton, T. (2021, February 2). Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy to take over in Q3.

CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jeff-bezos-to-step-down-as-amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-to-take-

over-in-q3.html
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2007). The five practices of exemplary leadership. The Jossey-Bass

reader on educational leadership, 63-74.

Pema, T. (2021, February 3). Amazon’s next CEO Andy Jassy is an inventor and a man after

Jeff Bezos’s own heart. YourStory.com. https://yourstory.com/2021/02/andy-jassy-amazon-ceo-

will-mean-strong-continuity-after-jeff-bezos/amp

Schleifer, T. (2021, March 9). Jeff Bezos will spend $1 billion a year to fight climate change.

Vox. https://www.vox.com/recode/22321861/jeff-bezos-climate-earth-fund-andrew-steel-amazon

Smith, C. (2015). Exemplary leadership: How style and culture predict organizational outcomes. Nursing

management, 46(3), 47-51.

Soper. (2021). Bloomberg. Bloomberg - Are you a robot?.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/amazon-projects-revenue-signaling-

strong-e-commerce-demand

Vito, G. F., Higgins, G. E., & Denney, A. S. (2014). Transactional and transformational leadership: An

examination of the leadership challenge model. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies &

Management.