A roller-coaster ride

I recently finished reading “The ride of a lifetime” by Rober Iger who was the Disney CEO for 15 years before stepping down in February 2020. He steered them through a period of strong growth marked with many major acquisitions. These include Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox.

Iger started his career at ABC Television in 1974 and then worked his way to become Disney CEO in 2005. There are several valuable lessons to be learnt from his story, and I have attempted to capture a few of them below.

1.  There is a fine line between leadership and humility. You can still be humble while being a leader. Be present for your people. Take responsibility when you screw up.  Be comfortable with your failures.  

2.  Good leadership isn’t about being indispensable, it’s about nurturing others to step into bigger shoes including yours. Iger wasn’t insecure in his position, and he ensured that he effectively delegated to his team so that they could grow the business and in the process grow themselves as better professionals.

3.  Leaders need to demonstrate optimism even in tough times. Both optimism and pessimism are infectious. This is particularly relevant in today’s Covid context, where we need to identify opportunities amidst all the uncertainties, and rally the organization around these opportunities with a sense of optimism.  

4.   Relentlessly pursue perfection - refuse to accept mediocrity. Don’t be in the business of playing it safe. Be in the business of creating possibilities for greatness. And then you will start attracting greatness.

5.   Be authentic. Your values- your sense of integrity, decency and honesty are stand-ins for the values of the organization. Make sure that you surround yourself with good people in addition to people who are good at their work.

6. “Innovate or Die” – Iger passionately drove this in all that he did. There can be no innovation if you operate from the fear of the new. He quickly recognized the need to be the best in creativity and technology, and have a global presence- and his entire strategy was built around this.

Iger had this amazing ability to spot acquisition opportunities in line with his strategy, but more importantly, he managed to seamless integrate the various cultures and create a bigger whole. And that was one of the key factors for his successful “ride of a lifetime”.