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Jay Battin Leadership Profile: Walt Disney
In 1923, Walter Elias Disney started Disney Brother films. He had talked his brother into
becoming his business partner and borrowed $500 dollars from his uncle Robert with his
trademark risk taking and confidence. What started as a small business venture grew into one
of the largest international companies in the world. “Disney currently has approximately 1.8
billion shares outstanding and is worth approximately $90 billion. With annual revenue of $41
billion in 2011, the company balances rewarding shareholders through dividends, share
buybacks and investing in current operations.” (Carillo, C., Crumley, J., Thieringer, K., &
Harrison, J, 2012) How did this happen? Through risk taking, good leadership, sound business
sense and a bit of good luck.
In the early days Disney created Alice and Oswald films. Disney was poised to make a
large amount of money with his Oswald the lucky Rabbit cartoons. Then disaster struck. He
traveled to New York with intentions to ask Charles Minz to increase the price on the new
Oswald contract. He was instead told Oswald was the property of Universal Pictures, and was
then informed that Minz had lured all his staff but one animator. “With the ultimatum came an
offer: come with me and be paid a generous salary or lose everything. Although shock and
disheartened, Disney never hesitated. He declined the offer, abandoned the Oswald character,
and resigned himself to losing most of his staff.” (Watts, S. 2013) His risk paid off when he bet
everything again on Steamboat Willie and, introduced the world to Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Here we see the essential pieces of leadership that are confidence, visionary thinking,
and being unafraid to take risks. Disney could deal with change. He was drawn to big ideas and
knew creative thinking would always win out. Disney has had many failures, but they often lead
to new opportunities because no matter what he was always learning through innovation. The
company continues to innovate to hedge themselves against risk. Disney had always been a
company to push boundaries. “By encouraging free-thinking, Disney has allowed their workers
to develop a sense that they are important and their ideas matter, and from this they have
created an experience for guests that is unmatched by anyone else.” (Zink, C. 2014) This has led
to many blockbuster hits most notably when they took a chance on 3D animation an launched
an entire industry with Toy Story.
