Retired Disney Executive Discusses Keys to Strong Leadership

By Leila Ugincius

What does it take to be a good leader? The answer could be as fundamental as being a good person.

Lee Cockerell learned that during his 40-year career in corporate management in the hospitality and entertainment industries.

“Through the first part of my career, I was a good manager — through intimidation,” said Cockerell, retired executive vice president of operations at Walt Disney World. “I made a big change halfway through my career. It’s important to run a business where everyone matters and they know it.”

Cockerell presented “Leadership Strategies: Creating Magic in Your Business” for a group of Richmond’s business leaders on Tuesday at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business. The school’s Center for Corporate Education — which provides innovative, business focused leadership and professional development that positively impacts leaders, their organizations and their communities — presented the event. Cockerell’s appearance served as an informal re-initiation of the center, said Director Jean Gasen.

“We have been very quietly building the center over the last year and I’m really proud to say that we’ve got a number of excellent programs that we’re launching now,” Gasen said. “We are both expanding our services and doing more targeted programs.”

Cockerell, who based his presentation on his 2008 book, “Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney,” was a fitting choice to kick off the center’s re-launch. He once trained School of Business Dean Ed Grier, who served as president of Disneyland Resort before joining VCU.

“When I became an executive in 1996, Lee called me and said, ‘I need to talk to you,’ and we had a one-on-one meeting,” Grier said. “And it was wonderful. He told me about his expectations — they were very high — and he said, ‘I’ll be with you along the way as your mentor.’ I owe my success to that mentoring.”

While at Disney, Cockerell considered himself an environmentalist. Cultivating the right atmosphere for your employees and customers is imperative, he said. So he concentrated on hiring the right people and serving as a good role model, which meant treating everyone as if they matter.

The latter tenet resonated with attendees.

“What he said about nurturing people really corresponded with what 4,000 years of perennial wisdom says about what we’re supposed to be doing,” said Drexel Rayford of Walnut Grove Baptist Church. “Notice people. Notice them, know who they are and treat them as individuals.”

Jack Berry, president and CEO of the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, called Cockerell’s message refreshing. “I just wish that the entire community could hear this and just the world could hear it,” he said. “It’s just a wonderful message.”

Ultimately, Cockerell has the simplest, yet most powerful, advice for being a good leader: be nice.

“If you do that, people forgive you for a lot of things,” he said. “Don’t underestimate the impact you have on other people. Don’t let people be invisible in your life.”

Cockerell also conducted a development seminar on Wednesday with faculty and staff from the VCU School of Business, focusing on leadership strategies.