19 May Walt Disney’s Leadership Lessons
Mickey Mouse first appeared in May 1928 in Steamboat Willie.
Everybody of course associates Mickey Mouse and many other characters to Walt Disney. There are even pictures showing Walt Disney with a pen and a drawing of Mickey Mouse.
A fact almost nobody knows though is that Walt never drew anything after 1923.
Yes, you read correctly: Walt Disney has not even come up with the original drawing for Mickey Mouse. That honor belongs to Ub Iwerks, an old time friend and business partner of Walt Disney.
Walt Disney in fact had a great leadership skill: He recognized when someone was better than him at a task and he let that person on his team take the leadership from him for that task.
Ub Iwerks was the cartoonist, the guy who could solve any technical problem for Walt Disney. And the latter would be the narrator, and incredible storyteller at that.
That leadership trait has produced some of the most incredible work of arts of the 20th century. Seems like a good leadership behavior, doesn’t it?
A good leader lets people on the team assume leadership when needed and particularly when these people know better than the leader what must be done.
Your role as an effective leader is to understand when you are becoming a liability for the team, you are not an enabler in a particular situation. In such situations, stay back, let the people on your team step up and take leadership from you.
This creates trust, empowerment, and high performance from the team.
Have you tried this already? Tell me about it.
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