Leadership is covered extensively in news publications and this week two contrasting examples are highlighted in “The Economist”.

The first is a positive case study of Disney, showing how creativity and profitability have flourished under CEO Bob Iger. Iger opts to release the reigns and allows creative leaders the freedom to develop new ideas. He’s axed “junk” production (straight to DVD sequels) and is building franchises around new concepts (”High School Musical”) that attract new audience segments (”tweens”).

The second is a negative review of the performance of General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. Finance unit GE Capital missed performance results leaving the CEO in the embarassing state of missing financial forecasts - that he’d committed to a few weeks earlier.

On Saturday The Sydney Morning Herald had an excellent column by Ross Gittins on the common mistakes of CEOs when managing staff. I heartily recommend the article and especially liked the advice on information sharing. Gittins says the more the better. Companies that keep information from staff create resentment and a sense of distrust.

I’ve witnessed it recently, when a company was undertaking a massive and complex project. The leadership team felt it best to keep all information from staff yet occasional slips led to information “haves and have nots”. Those not entrusted to the information felt excluded. Their trust in leadership was not reciprocated - if they can’t trust me, why should I trust them?

Leadership is the hardest task for any CEO, and recent articles point out good lessons of leadership. Trust, delegation, empowerment, sharing - all words we’ve heard before. But it’s great seeing the lessons supported by success (Disney’s Iger and creative empowerment) and failure (GE’s Immelt on missed promises).

Read the Gittins article - it’s required reading for any leader.