A good CEO should be able to delegate day to day activities for a week - how else would he ever get to go on vacation? In fact, a good CEO should probably be able to delegate all day to day activities he might be involved in, in case of an emergency, in case he's hit by a bus, or just so he can spend a day thinking strategically.
Good point. I guess the question is: in the long run will Amazon be better of having Jeff Bezos performing his usual duties as CEO 3/23-3/27 or acquiring first hand the experience of working in a distribution center. The net difference is probably de minimis. Although it does make for good publicity and employee moral. So net-net I think this is a decent one-off gesture, but I don't think it belongs in every CEO's playbook.
Just because he is moving boxes doesn't mean he isn't providing value as a CEO. Presumably he is learning things that will empower him to improve the company somehow, which seems like a valuable thing to have your CEO do. I'm sure Mr. Bezos is smart enough not to go AWOL for a week if there were more critical things to attend to.
Also don't underestimate the value of improved employee morale and good publicity. Your company is vastly more productive with happy employees, because they will work harder and go the extra mile for something they believe in.
