From Disney to Chanel: Important leadership lessons
Leadership isn’t exactly what you think, according to retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
In his experience, the logic behind leadership has been represented “too simplistically.”
“It’s really an interaction between followers and leaders,” McChrystal said to FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday. “It’s the basic relationship between followers and the leaders that we have to study and understand.”
McChrystal, who is also the co-founder of consulting firm McChrystal Group, examines the leadership model by profiling 13 prominent leaders from several industries and eras, including Walt Disney, Coco Chanel, Boss Tweed and Margaret Thatcher in his new book “Leaders: Myth and Reality.”
In his opinion, followers are responsible for great leaders.
“Followers have agency — we have responsibility much more than we ever thought before,” he said, “If we stand and wait for a great woman or a man to come and lead us, we are going to be sadly mistaken.”
“We follow leaders because they fill some part of us that we need. Part of it’s inspiration. Part of it’s emotional. And they become symbols for us. And then they motive us into doing things we might not otherwise do.”
Disney transformed the entertainment industry, creating the first advanced animated shorts and “Snow White,” the first full-length animated film. Chanel was a hard worker and forced models to stand for hours “while she chain-smoked and designed clothes on their bodies,” he said, but also revolutionized women’s clothing.
Both were founders but have become important symbols, he said, that have helped propel their industries.
“[Disney] wasn’t the whole Disney organization any more than Coco Chanel in fact was the Chanel brand, the Chanel empire,” said McChrystal.
Thatcher, who served as Britain’s prime minister for more than a decade, was regarded an one of the iconic leaders of the 20th century and Tweed, who is widely known as the “boss” of New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall, used their strong beliefs to influence people.
“We call them the power brokers, not politicians, because they operated within the system to use power,” McChrystal said.