Michael Eisner Research Paper

Michael Eisner is a transformational leader in the history of Walt Disney Company. As the text book motions, those transformational leaders are highly self-confident and charismatic, supposed to influence followers to adopt new values and visions, and transcend personal goals and interests for achievement of collective goals. 1-3 And that was exactly what Michael Eisner act when he became the chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Productions in 1984.

At that time, the company was faced with serious crisis coming from both outside and inside the company. The former CEO, Ron W. Miller decided to remove the business focus onto the investment in the real estate, and thus cut down the creativity department, which angered Walter's nephew Roy E. Disney,
Beginning with The Little Mermaid (1989), its flagship animation studio enjoyed a series of commercial and critical successes. Disney also broadened its adult offerings in film when then Disney Studio Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg acquired Miramax Films in 1993. Disney acquired many other media sources, including ABC and ESPN. During the early years of the 1990s, Eisner and his partners set out to plan "The Disney Decade" which was to feature new parks around the world, existing park expansions, new films, and new media investments. Some of the proposals were completed which included the Euro Disney Resort (now Disneyland Paris), Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios), Disney's California Adventure Park, Disney-MGM Studios Paris (eventually opened in 2002 as Walt Disney Studios Park), and various film projects including a Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Disney, Michael Eisner’s transformational leadership proves to be a success although some of his opponents consider him as a certain degree of personal activist who made many of the Disney company business decisions based on his personal preferences, such as musical productions, and even the final decision of changing the original design of Chicken little (Chicken Little) from a girl to