The Euro Disneyland Case

After the massive success that the Walt Disney Company has achieved in Tokyo, the company suffered a big failure in the next overseas expansion venture which was named Euro Disneyland. The failure’s main reason was the lack of the emotional intelligence that should be present in effective leaders. In particular, the emotional intelligence components are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. The most important element that was missing in this case is empathy which represents the capability to comprehend the emotional temperament of other people and treat them accordingly. The empathy characteristics include the cross-cultural understanding, customer service, and capability in building and holding aptitude.
In reality, the Euro Disneyland case emphasizes the significance of cross-culture understanding for effective leadership. As cultural features of a specific nation play a key role in shaping the management and leadership style, a study shows that effective leadership in one cultural background may be ineffective in another [1]. The international managers should identify cultural differences and then integrate the appropriate cultural and leadership style to lead effectively in a different environment. In addition, it is important that the international managers who are aware of a country’s culture should integrate some of the emotional intelligence’ components to meet the needs of a specific culture which will lead to the organizational success.

In order to understand the country’s culture, the business executives must understand the traditions, culture, laws, and people of a country to reduce the potential problems and effectively manage the organization. However, for the Walt Disney business this is not so. Indeed, as cross-cultural understanding is a key characteristic of empathy component, the Walt Disney company executives did not carefully explore all sides of the European setting and culture. The Walt Disney