Pixar Case Study: Leadership Assessment
In order to analyze the leadership effectiveness, it is necessary to define first, what does effective leadership mean. Leadership is the process of transforming organizations from what they are to what the leader would have them become. There are three interdependent leadership activities, which leaders have to perform constantly: setting a direction, designing the organization and nurturing the corporative culture. (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, & McNamara, 2014, pp.346-347) Let us observe the Pixar’s past and present from the point of view of these three competences.
The company was initially founded by Edvin Catmull as an experimental studio, and, despite having the excellent team, it was hard for him to start. Their first big decision was to start cooperating with George Lukas, but in several years it turned out, that Lukas in not interested in creating the fully animated films and growing in this direction in general. As one can see, the leadership in the company was pretty vague at the time, probably, because Catmull did not have a clear vision about the future of the studios and no power to set the direction.
The moment when Jobs decided to run the company was the turning point in the history of Pixar. Jobs could provide the effective overall management and see the company from the market’s perspective. He set the direction to push the boundaries of the computer animation through technology and decided to cooperate with Disney, as he understood, that it is going to be a mutually beneficial deal.
What concerns the culture nurturing aspect, Jobs also was the one who initiated creating of the relaxed campus-style corporate culture. Having Jobs as a “global leader”, Catmull and Lasseter, two other key leading figures of Pixar, now were able to manage the areas of their specialization – technological and creative components.
In general, one can draw a conclusion that the leadership of the company was quite effective since Jobs started to manage it. The best evidence is, of course, the position, which Pixar occupies the market. There are, though, some challenges brought by the decision to cooperate with Disney, which are examined in the next part of the work.
Competitive advantages and potential challenges
As it was already mentioned in the previous part of this work, the great multifaceted leadership style is not only one of the main competitive advantages of Pixar by itself, but also the basis of many others. The optimal structure, in which the management is conventionally split into general supervision, technical and creative aspects, enables to cover all areas crucial for company’s performance.
Highly developed unique culture of the company is one of its key core competences, as it allows employees to apply and develop their skills in a most effective way and avoid overworking and burnout. The overall atmosphere is very campus-like and friendly, workers are taken good care of and encouraged to be creative and think outside of the box. (Catmull, 2016) The creativity is boosted by the concept that technology should serve the …
