Walt Disney Including: A History Leader- Page

¶ … Walt Disney including: a history leader- page applying leadership traits-: inspiration, goal setting, praise recognition, training/coaching, problem solving, planning,

Walt Disney: Leadership style

Walt Disney was a creative man who built an empire around his vision. Love or hate his product, he created a distinct, family-focused 'Disney style' of entertainment. Before Walt Disney, cartoons were regarded as largely derivative forms of entertainment, as a warm-up to the feature film. Disney placed cartoons front and center of the American entertainment experience during a time when movies were one of the central ways in which Americans came together to enjoy a commonly-enjoyed fantasy. He later parlayed this success into television, and even into theme parks which brought the cartoon experience to life. Disney was able to create his cutting-edge vision through near obsessive control of his product and tunnel-vision focus upon his goals. He was a transformative leader, inspiring his subordinates with his perfectionism, although his personal brand of transformative leadership had an autocratic cast to it.

Disney was known as an obsessively detail-oriented man. Disney entered the field of animated cartooning in 1919, and his cartoon Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse, was a near-instant success. He was a pioneer in his presentation and vision of the animated world. Disney had a unique ability to tap into the cultural zeitgeist. "In 1933, The Three Little Pigs and its title song 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?' became a theme for the country in the midst of the Great Depression" ("Walt Disney," Biography.com, 2012). Disney's output showed how people could identify with cartoon creations, just as much as they could live action films.

Before Disney, animation was considered a largely disposable art form, something to be watched before the main feature. Disney boldly brought animation front and center, laying claim for its relevance. He constantly set more and more ambitious goals for his company. In this respect, Disney was a transformative leader, completely turning around how his industry was viewed, based upon his personal vision and force of personality. "In December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, premiered in Los Angeles. It produced an unimaginable $1.499 million, in spite of the Depression, and won a total of eight Oscars" ("Walt Disney," Biography.com, 2012). Disney was also an early innovator in the field of television, producing works such as Zorro and Davy Crockett as well as The Mickey Mouse Club. He produced feature films such as Mary Poppins, which boldly mixed live entertainment and animation. And, of course, he was the first entrepreneur to create 'theme parks,' which effectively expanded the State Fair experience into a permanent vacation destination. Virtually everything Disney did, no one had done before, and Mickey Mouse today is an internationally recognizable cultural icon of Americana. His company lives on and continues to serve his vision in various guises.

Disney had a creative vision, and demanded that both his employees and the public follow that vision in an inspirational fashion. "It is their unswerving commitment as much as anything else that keeps people going, particularly through the darker times when some may question whether the vision can ever be achieved. If the people do not believe that they can succeed, then their efforts will flag. The Transformational Leader seeks to infect and reinfect their followers with a high level of commitment to the vision" (Straker 2012). Disney, unlike many other Hollywood moguls, showed remarkable durability throughout his life. He was able to adapt his product to the Great Depression, World War II, and the postwar Cold War era and beyond, while still ensuring that is products were recognizably branded as 'Disney.'

Disney was doing something profoundly different than what was taking place at other studios, by making animation central to the production process. However, for all of his inspirational and charismatic qualities, Disney also had a darker side. For example, his means of compensating his employees often appeared quite unfair. "Walt's manner of awarding bonuses has been called arbitrary, inconsistent, and subjective" (Krasniewicz 79). In 1949, the Disney Corporation was flagged by the U.S. Department of Labor for inconsistent awarding of pensions and its poor treatment of workers and shareholders alike (Krasniewicz 79). Disney thus placed emphasis on his vision inspiring his workers to excel, rather than using conventional incentives such as salaries and bonuses. The attitude at the company from the beginning was that workers should be happy for the chance to be working at such an excellent organization, rather than worry about something mundane like pay. All training and mentorship was focused on making a better product for Disney, not nurturing the skills of the individual employee.

However unjust this may seem, this also underlines Disney's status as a transformational, rather than transactional leader and the darker side of transformational leadership. Transactional leadership, in contrast to transformational leadership, focuses on a 'tit for tat' exchange between leader and follower. The follower is expected to obey in exchange for fair, expected financial compensation. It is based on the fundamental assumption that "workers are motivated by rewards and punishments" and "awards and punishments are contingent upon the performance of the followers. The leader views the relationship between managers and subordinates as an exchange - you give me something for something in return. When subordinates perform well, they receive some type of reward" (Cherry 2012).

As a transformational leader, Disney viewed the ability to make great animation and to learn from his ideas to be reward enough. In fact, during the very early years of the Disney company, "Walt's staff was young and excited about working in this new medium, but there wasn't always enough money to pay them" (Krasniewicz 24). Yet they stayed on because they believed in Walt. There were attempts to unionize Disney as the company grew more successful, and Disney tended to view these efforts as assaults upon his creative product, rather than as legitimate requests by hard-working employees. Disney took an 'either you are for me or against me' type of attitude. When workers protested and were threatening to go on strike in the 1930s, during the height of worker agitation in Depression-era America, Disney called meeting and "explained his unwavering passion for animation and fear that that if the Disney studio ended, cartoons would be crass and solely based on economics" ( Krasniewicz 81)