The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

The foundation of risk-taking is courage, and in ever-changing, disrupted businesses, risk-taking is essential, innovation is vital, and true innovation occurs only when people have courage.

Managing your own time and respecting others’ time is one of the most vital things to do as a manager, and he was horrendous at it.

This is all a way of stating what might seem obvious but is often ignored: that a delicate balance is required between management being responsible for the financial performance of any creative work and, in exercising that responsibility, being careful not to encroach on the creative processes in harmful and counterproductive ways. Empathy is a pre

True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.

Innovate or die, and there’s no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

I would give Roy an emeritus role on the board and would invite him to film premieres and theme-park openings and special company events. (He wouldn’t attend board meetings, however.) I’d also give him a small consulting fee and an office on the lot so he could come and go and call Disney his home again. In exchange, there would be no lawsuit, no p

You have to do the homework. You have to be prepared. You certainly can't make a major acquisitlon, for example, without building the necessary models to help you determine whether a deal is the right one. But you also have to recognize that there is never 100 percent certainty No matter how much data you've been given, it's still, ultimately, a ri

We all want to believe we're indispensable. You have to be self-aware enough that you don't cling to the notion that you are the only person who can do this job. At its essence, good leadership isn't about being indispensable; it's about helping others be prepared to step into your shoes-giving them access to your own decision-making, identifying t

It's easy to be optimistic when everyone is telling you you're great. It's much harder, and much more necessary, when your sense of yourself is on the line.