Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Shares 3 Reminders To Stay Sane As A Leader

Forbes

3 days ago

Andy Jassy's advice is applicable to leader's mental health.
When Andy Jassy transitioned into the CEO role at Amazon, he didn't just inherit one of the most complex businesses on the planet. He stepped into an identity shift that would challenge even the most seasoned leaders. Much like Greg Abel stepping in for Warren Buffett soon, Jassy follows an iconic figure whose shadow looms large. The stakes are high, the spotlight brighter, and the pressures heavier.
In a recent interview on How Leaders Lead, Jassy reflected on working alongside Jeff Bezos and shared the key lessons he learned while stepping into the top role. Jassy's advice was framed around achieving operational excellence, but there's a deeper, often overlooked takeaway: these same strategies are also valuable safeguards for leaders' mental resilience and burnout prevention. For CEOs managing high-stakes decisions, nonstop demands, and the quiet weight of personal responsibilities, Jassy's three pieces of advice offer a foundational framework to protect your clarity, capacity, and composure at the top.
You don't need to be at the helm of one of the world's largest companies to feel the creeping weight of fragmentation. The higher you go, the more in demand you become, and the easier it is to let core pieces of yourself fall to the side. As Jassy put it: "You have to massively delegate to be successful. When you have 25 businesses across the company, you can't be in the weekly rhythms of each business. It doesn't scale for the businesses—or for you, or the company."
Delegation may sound like a simple concept, but it's often the least utilized by leaders nearing the edge of burnout. A recent global survey of over 10,000 leaders found that delegation is the most valuable yet underutilized tool for avoiding exhaustion and decision fatigue. Refusing to delegate is a fast track to complexity overload. CEOs who carry too much eventually collapse under the weight. Delegation isn't just a leadership tool; it's a form of mental triage that protects your capacity to stay sharp.
Power shifts change dynamics—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. When leaders move up, even long-standing relationships are tested or transformed. Jassy learned this firsthand: "I knew all the people who were going to report to me because I was on the senior leadership team with them for many years. I had good relationships with virtually all of them. I didn't think it was going to be that big a deal moving into the new job. But what happened was every single relationship reset."
Some relationships reset quickly. Others never did. That's not necessarily a failure. It's a natural part of growth. Trying to maintain everything the same after a promotion, or even just growing personally, can create emotional friction. It slows your momentum and ties you to obsolete expectations. Resetting relationships can be a relief. It clears the invisible pressure of maintaining false harmony. With executive stress already running high, the emotional bandwidth you preserve by letting go of unreciprocated rapport and other drainers becomes critical.
Leadership walks a fine line between confidence and humility. The temptation to appear unflappable is strong, especially at the top. But pretending to know everything is not a strength. It's a liability. Jassy encouraged leaders to balance humility with instinct: "At almost every leadership level, when you step up, you want to have some humility and respect for what you don't know and what you have to learn. You can also sometimes have maybe too much respect for it."
He went on: "There were some things that seemed a little bit off to me. It was a good reminder that you just have to trust your own instincts and your gut sometimes. And even if you're wrong, people will show you why you're wrong—and it's OK."
The danger lies not in being wrong, but in silencing your judgment out of fear. CEOs who ignore their instincts out of doubt often become anxious, uncertain, and misaligned. Their executive presence suffers, and their teams feel it. Doubt drains your energy. Clarity, however imperfect, keeps you moving.
Andy Jassy's reflections weren't just tactical advice for new CEOs and others making organizational transitions. They were foundational emotional survival strategies in disguise. As much as leaders manage people and businesses, they also manage themselves. Whether it's the clarity that comes from the necessary delegation, the emotional freedom that comes from resetting relationships, or the quiet confidence that comes from trusting your gut, Jassy's lessons offer more than guidance. They offer a way to lead without losing yourself in the process.