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Walt Disney: Leadership Paper

In: Business and Management

Submitted By kbkb
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Introduction Leadership has many meanings, depending who you talk to. This paper will concentrate on leadership as the ability for one to influence others in reaching common goals (Northouse, 2013). The focus of this report is on Walt Disney, a man who demonstrated, both positive and negative leadership throughout his life. The leadership theories which will be focused on for this report include concept of power, trait approach, skills approach, style approach, and transformational leadership will be explored and applied to Disney’s experiences.

Biography Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of four, his family moved to Missouri, where his love for drawing and arts developed. When he was 18 he moved to Kansas and was employed at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio (Mosley, 2002). He soon after opened his first animation studio, Laugh O’ Grams with his brother, Roy Disney (World Biography, 2014). The studio grew in popularity, but eventually went bankrupt due to poor financial managing and high employee costs (Mosley, 2002). This prompted the brother’s move to California. Here they opened the Disney Brothers’ Studio in Hollywood (Disney, 2014). Walt met his wife, Lillian Bounds, who was hired at the studio in 1925. The pair got married and had two daughters, Diane and Sharon (Mosley, 2002). In 1926, Mickey Mouse was created and featured in the first animated short with sound, Steamboat Willie (World Biography, 2014). Nine years later, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in Los Angeles. This was soon followed by many more successful animated classics including Dumbo, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi (Disney, 2014). Today, Disney is recognized as the creator of Disneyland theme park and resorts, which opened in 1995, and co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, now known as The Walt Disney Company (Disney, 2014). In

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