Lessons Learned from Disney

Source: Unsplash.com

Fair to say that Disney and its CEO has been in the hot seat these last couple of weeks over the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” issue. Disney’s HQ and obviously Disney World is in the state of Florida so the issue is quite high profile for the company. Plus Disney has been known to be LGBTQ+ friendly so folks are assuming that the company will take a certain and specific stand on the issue. Or so it seems.

I don’t know all of the details nor do I really want to comment on the details except to say this … there’s a lesson to be learned here, regardless of what the CEO and the company said or didn’t say or apologized for or didn’t apologize for. Or about any of the specifics of the actual bill itself. None of that is my point.

My point here is that as a company and as company leadership, you have to be aligned with your employees. Full stop. To me, that is the fundamental issue for Disney at the moment is that their leadership does not seem to be aligned with the employee population. Or at least not with a large portion of it.

As a leader, you have to know where your employees sit on an issue and you have to take that into constant consideration when making policies or taking a stand on something. And every time in between! You have to let them know that you are listening and that you hear them. You have to let them know you are considering their views in your decisions and in your statements. You have to explain how your decisions line up with how they feel. And you have to do it all the time.

And by the way, the CEO is at the center of it all both internally and externally. As I wrote in my latest book “The Conscious Marketer,” the CEO is the new Chief Brand Officer as spokesperson with customers and employees. And BTW, the employees are just as important of a stakeholder as the customers. If not more! Happy employees do good work which results in happy customers. Full stop.

So it’s clear to me that regardless of the stance on this or any other issue, the Disney CEO and its leadership may simply just not be aligned. It may not be intentional. But it’s still problematic. But perhaps easily fixed on a journey to get connected again.

Do you know where your employees stand? Are you aligned with them? What’s your experience? JIM