The multinational media and entertainment corporation, Walt Disney Co., does not want to let go of Bob Iger. The accomplished CEO has led the company to many successes, including the building of Shanghai Disney Resort in China and expansions of Disney theme parks. Iger, an investor favorite, originally stated he would retire in 2015, and has extended his contract multiple times since. According to a BNN article, Disney recently released that Iger would continue to act as CEO until July 2019, and would stay on as a consultant for three more years after. It’s no surprise that there was a spike in investment after this announcement was made. The mass media conglomerate has been searching for Iger’s successor, but it will be incredibly difficult to fill his shoes.
Before Bob Iger began his run as chief executive officer, his predecessor was very business-minded and used a disciplined process to produce films. It was business development teams that came up with the ideas and gave them to directors. This strategy was not working for Disney, and when Iger stepped into power he changed it. According to Bill George, a writer for Fortune, the current CEO has stated that he believes creativity is “the heart and soul of Disney” and he knew that they need to keep innovating in order for the company to grow. As Gavin Gordon mentions in his blog, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla is also a transformational leader (as I will expand on later) and constantly promotes creativity and innovation in the company — and knows that this is essential for firms to stay competitive. Iger was the change agent for the company’s organizational change, and his purpose was to restructure in order to promote creativity. Therefore, he modified this very disciplined strategy and put the responsibility for producing ideas in the hands of creative directors, letting them propose original suggestions as well. This reminds me of Google and their 80/20, which is a policy that ensures employees (especially the engineers) have creative time to pursue their own ideas for the company. It’s proven to be a very effective tactic for both multinational companies. For Disney, it was particularly reflected in the huge success of the 2013 film Frozen.
In light of his emphasis on and promotion of creativity in Disney, many consider Iger to be an ‘innovation leader’, as stated in the Forbes article. In order to incite this organizational change in the company, Iger needed to alter the way the employees were thinking and operating – especially in regards to films. He was not only an innovation leader who inspired creation, but a transformational leader. Not just because he changed the way they were producing films, but also because Iger himself was more creative and therefore further encouraged it in others in the organization, which is another quality of a transformational leader. I can attest that this is an important quality in a leader (particularly one trying to incite change), as at my previous job at the Anchor Eatery, I had two bosses with very different personalities and leadership styles – co-owners. I was always more inspired to be more creative and work more happily around the more positive and creative and in contrast, was not creative at all and just wanted to finish my shift in order to leave as soon as possible around the abusive negative supervisor.
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References:
George, B. (2016, April 4). The Leadership Quality that Truly Separates Disney’s Bob Iger From his Peers. Forbes. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2016/04/04/the-leadership-quality-that-truly-separates-disneys-bob-iger-from-his-peers/
Gordon, G. (2017, February 5). Elon Musk’s Groundbreaking Leadership. [Web Blog Post]. Retrieved March 30, 2017 from https://blogs.ubc.ca/gavingordon/2017/02/05/elon-musks-groundbreaking-leadership/
R. (2017, March 23). Disney extends CEO Bob Iger’s contract to 2019 – Article. Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://www.bnn.ca/disney-extends-ceo-bob-iger-s-contract-to-2019-1.704177