Transformational Leadership: How Leaders Change Teams, Companies, and Organizations

Course Description
Get an essential guide to the dynamics of transformational leadership. Learn how leaders shape, inspire, and change teams, companies, and organizations through principles of vision, motivation, power, persuasion, and innovation.

What You’ll Learn in the Course

• The theories and models behind effective leadership.

• How to drive and sustain organizational change.

• The role of power, motivation, and persuasion in leadership.

• Tools for building strong teams, fostering creativity, and developing future leaders.

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Lessons

01: The Challenge (33 min)
Introduction to the need for transformational leaders and an overview of leadership models such as situational and adaptive leadership.

02: Portrait of a Transformation (31 min)
Case study on Jack Welch at GE, exploring the true traits of leadership and the difference between leaders and managers.

03: Do Great Leaders Share the Same Traits? (28 min)
Examine three leadership perspectives: traits, behavioral, and power-influence.

04: How Much Does Context Matter? (31 min)
Study leadership theories that depend on context: LPC model, path-goal theory, situational leadership, and normative decision theory.

05: Charismatic and Transformational Leadership (31 min)
Unpack charisma’s role in leadership, its power, limitations, and connection to transformational leadership.

06: Resistance and Reactions to Change (30 min)
Understand how people react to change and how leaders can reframe challenges as opportunities.

07: Phases of Transformation (32 min)
Explore the “unfreeze-change-freeze” model and an eight-step approach for implementing organizational change.

08: Harnessing Emotion (31 min)
Discover the importance of emotion in change, using case studies on motivation and behavioral science.

09: Making Change Stick (31 min)
Learn the four processes and six principles that ensure organizational change lasts.

10: Extrinsic Motivation and Reward (31 min)
Analyze external motivators like rewards and punishments, their limits, and guidelines for better systems.

11: Beyond Money – Intrinsic Motivation (32 min)
Examine how intrinsic goals drive stronger performance and learn from a real-world case study.

12: Power – Getting It and Keeping It (31 min)
Explore sources of power, how it differs from authority, and the dangers of overuse.

13: Key Levers of Power (32 min)
Understand strategies like framing, timing, structural change, and symbolic action to navigate organizational politics.

14: Influence – Tools of Persuasion (33 min)
Examine two persuasion tools: authority and commitment.

15: Give and Take (33 min)
Study four more persuasion tools: reciprocation, social proof, liking, and scarcity.

16: Negotiating as a Way of Life (32 min)
Discover negotiation strategies rooted in game theory and learn their practical applications.

17: Avoiding the Zero-Sum Game (31 min)
Unpack Fisher and Ury’s negotiation model focusing on interests, objective criteria, and value creation.

18: Building and Leading Teams (31 min)
Learn the five conditions for designing strong teams and how to optimize productivity.

19: Guiding Teams as They Evolve (33 min)
Explore process leadership, avoiding groupthink, and managing team “fault lines.”

20: Observation and Organizational Learning (32 min)
Develop strategies for observation, intelligence gathering, and avoiding unconscious biases.

21: Deliberate Practice and Experiment (33 min)
Learn how after-action reviews and experiments (including failed ones) can fuel learning.

22: Stimulating Creativity (32 min)
Break myths about creativity and explore collaboration, “blue ocean” thinking, and group flow.

23: Leading Innovation (31 min)
Case studies on open innovation and how leaders can harness external networks.

24: Developing Leaders (33 min)
Learn why leadership development matters, how companies grow leaders, and how to cultivate future talent.