What Disney’s New CEO Can Teach Us About Beloved Leadership

In just a few days, I will be heading to Orlando to join more than 1,400 independent school business leaders and business partners — perhaps including you — for the 2026 NBOA Annual Meeting, March 1-4, at the Orlando World Center Marriott.

Ahead of every year’s Annual Meeting, I always say it will be the best meeting ever, and I truly think this time it will be. As someone who has seen snow on the ground for the past five weeks in below freezing temperatures — a very long time in Washington, DC – the sunny highs of 70 and 80 degrees indeed sound “magical.”

I’m also excited to be in Disney’s backyard. I’m not only a longtime Disney fan, but I’m also intellectually interested in Disney’s incredible customer experience and business savvy, which a friend of mine refers to as “the power to separate you from your money.” This combination has made the company both a beloved and highly successful brand for so long. (For more on this, see my Net Assets interview with Disney's former head of innovation and creativity, Duncan Wardle.)

It’s not too late to register for the 2026 NBOA Annual Meeting, March 1-4, at the Orlando World Center Marriott. Experience:

• Captivating keynotes, higher level deep-dive sessions and concurrent sessions in finance, HR, business operations, risk management, facilities and more
• The Business Solutions Showcase, featuring business partners providing every service in independent school business operations
• Two pre-conference workshops, one in facilities management and the other in benchmarking and data analysis
• Opportunities for networking at receptions, meals and much more

Learn more and register at nboaannualmeeting.org.

That’s why I was intrigued by the recent Harvard Business Review article, “Disney’s New CEO and the Rise of ‘Experience Intelligence.'" Josh D’Amaro is that new CEO, and he led the company’s “experience” division, i.e., its parks and resorts, before taking the helm of the whole company. The British researcher who penned the article, Marcus Buckingham, spent time shadowing D’Amaro on his rounds through a park, in a corporate office and with a creative team.

What Buckingham saw was “lots of love that day. The guests were so thrilled to see him, beaming, and laughing, and dashing back and forth to take pictures. And the employees were beaming too.”

Why are both guests and staff so thrilled with this leader? Because the new CEO has a way of recognizing people as people, Buckingham writes. He gave hugs, he listened to personal stories, he reflected others’ love of Disney back in his conversational responses, his attention to detail and the time he spent gathering feedback and perfecting the outcomes that everyone was working towards.

Buckingham has coined the term “experience intelligence” for the kind of leadership he sees in D’Amaro and select others in the corporate world. It has two hallmarks.

To net extreme positive outcomes, the leader must create extreme positive experiences.

First is a divergence from traditional leaders, who tend to use “goals, feedback, and praise [to motivate] employees, [and] pricing, rewards, and loyalty programs [to motivate] customers.” In contrast, “The experience intelligent leader recognizes that a person’s experiences create lasting feelings, these feelings drive behavior, and the behaviors drives outcomes. To net extreme positive outcomes, the leader must create extreme positive experiences.”

This insight is a win for independent school leaders. Independent schools are not about products or objects — they are chiefly about experiences in the classroom and within the school community, and the positive outcomes that grow out of those experiences. Experience is at the bedrock of what our schools do, and attention to this as a business leader can only make our schools stronger. Yes, we must keep a close eye on expenses and revenues, but at the end of the day, we make the most impact when we support a top notch experience for both families and staff.

The most powerful experiences are those which the person says they love—not ‘like,’ not ‘respect,’ not ‘learned a lot during,’ not ‘really enjoyed.

Second, Buckingham asserts that “The most powerful experiences are those which the person says they love—not ‘like,’ not ‘respect,’ not ‘learned a lot during,’ not ‘really enjoyed.’” His point is that doing pretty well is not enough for business leaders – and I would say for school leaders – to earn the love of their community. I would call it the WOW factor. “Many leaders rely on blunt force, chest-thumping directives, transaction, and extraction,” writes Buckingham. This produces short-term results, but rarely long-term ones.

“Love — defined precisely as a deep and unwavering commitment to another human’s flourishing — does the opposite,” Buckingham explains. “It accelerates learning, strengthens loyalty, improves recovery from stress, and drives advocacy.”

That’s where I’d like to leave you, with Valentine’s Day in our rearview, reflecting on the power of creating experiences at your school that people love. You can do this through listening, through responding thoughtfully, through caring about the things your community cares about. It may be as simple as that.

I hope you were inspired as I was by this newly anointed leader of a long-beloved brand. And with that, I’m off to the NBOA Annual Meeting — an experience I LOVE! 

Jeffrey Shields, FASAE, CAE

NBOA President and CEO

Follow NBOA President and CEO Jeff Shields on LinkedIn.