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

By: Michael A. Roberto, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Michael A. Roberto

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

Discover an essential handbook for strategies, concepts, and insights into the dynamics of transformational leadership in these 24 lectures, which take you on an in-depth examination of the leadership behaviors and capabilities essential to creating positive change in teams and organizations. Filled with case studies and lessons from leaders in business, politics, sports, and the military, as well as a range of specific skills and strategies you can put to use in your own career, this lecture series is an authoritative guide to successful leadership.

You'll learn why, unlike management, which focuses on achieving consistent and reliable results, transformational leadership focuses on producing change - sometimes very substantial or even radical change. After an introductory lecture on the definitions of effective, transformational leadership, you dive right into the nuts and bolts of this important professional skill. In order to make the subject well organized and easily accessible, Professor Roberto has arranged Transformational Leadership into four key modules, each of which offers a focused look at a particular aspect of leadership: models of leadership (which surveys critical issues such as human behavior and long-term goals); the change process (which focuses on resistance to change as well as ways to institutionalize it); critical skills and capabilities (including motivation, persuasion, negotiation, and teamwork); and creativity, innovation and learning (which is devoted to everything from after-action reviews to systems thinking to mentoring).

Taken together, Professor Roberto's lectures are a stirring call to responsible leadership and a learning experience that's as informative as it is inspiring.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2011 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2011 The Great Courses

Just over three stars

I would say if you are intuitive and pay attention to people, you won't find anything groundbreaking. It's all stuff that makes sense, and you may already do much of it naturally. However, the lectures include a lot of research data to back up the speaker's info, so it's nice to know people have worked on studying leadership and put together a lot of useful data. If you're struggling with being a leader, or need a refresher, this is a great listen. You can listen at 2x speed and get through it comfortably in a day or so. One small note; if you're trying to get into a management position, or learn how to organize people better, this won't help immensely. This is focused more on big picture leadership with an emphasis on running a core team of people who are good at what they do, and have some interest in working together. If you're looking for basic management skills, you won't find much more than some ideas to tuck away for the future. This would be difficult to apply to scheduling high school kid's minimum wage job shifts, or trying to get a half-hearted group of volunteers focused on specific tasks.

61 of 64 people found this review helpful

An outstanding survey of leadership theory!

Would you consider the audio edition of Transformational Leadership: How Leaders Change Teams, Companies, and Organizations to be better than the print version?

"Transformational Leadership" merits another 5 Star review for The Great Courses. After listening to Professor Roberto's other great course on The Art of Critical Decision Making, I couldn't wait to listen to this one.

It did not disappoint. Professor Roberto is extremely easy to listen to, mixing stories and examples from well-known companies and executives with the very latest research and management theories. He is a management guru on top of his game.

The course is a survey course. Professor Roberto takes on transformational leadership as a theme, but in doing so covers a wide range of management tools and theories that any executive might bring to bear in trying to lead transformation.

Accordingly, no single topic gets more than a 1/2 hour's worth of attention, making it the audio equivalent of a page-turner. Among other things, Roberto covers leadership traits and styles, change management, motivation and reward systems, tools of influence and negotiation, team building, creativity, innovation, and much, much more. It's an easy listen, but a dense course, in the best sense of the word.

Which scene was your favorite?

The lectures on creativity and innovation hit home. And I was surprised to learn about recent research showing that creative people are the most likely to be dishonest.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes! But that would be impossible, as it's the full length of a college course.

Any additional comments?

If you are a manager looking for a little inspiration, you'll find it time and again in this course. If you are looking to study the topic in depth, this is one you'll listen to multiple times. In addition, the course is chock full of references to other great management books.

Highly recommended.

25 of 26 people found this review helpful

Great Leadership Overview - Theory & Application

It just so happens I am a grad student in a business leadership program in the midwest. Since we are off for the summer I was looking for something to help keep me from getting rusty, so I've been listening to this course while driving back and forth to work.

I prefer the half hour format per lecture (my drive is about that length). While not as in depth as the individual courses I've taken so far, as one would expect the perspective is slightly different from those presented by my professors and the case studies are different from the ones we discussed in class giving me the opportunity to digest the content in a more nuanced manner.

Definitely worth a listen!

24 of 26 people found this review helpful

A lot of great material, all in one place.

I read (and listen to) a lot of leadership material. I wasn't sure what to expect from "The Great Courses" but I was very pleasantly surprised. Since this is a lecture series, I had some reservations that the material may be too academic or presented in an overly dry manor, but it is not. The pace of narration and clarity of the speaker (Michael A. Roberto) are excellent. While this may seem pricey (if you are not buying with credits) I think there is more value here than you would expect. Even with a basic membership the cost is very reasonable. There is a lot of information covered and if you are keeping notes it will likely inspire you to read (or listen to) some followup books that are available on Audible as well.

Whether you are a practicing leader or just getting into this subject matter for the first time, I would highly recommend that you take a chance on this series.

20 of 22 people found this review helpful

A concise yet comprehensive overview of leadership

This set of lectures goes wide and deep enough to provide the listener with a comprehensive coverage of topics necessary to lead through change. each lecture references well known and foundational texts for further exploration. thus series iappears valuable to both novice and seasoned leader alike.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Great Courses at their best!

Practical leadership information that is both well researched and well taught. This was as good as - if not better than - the leadership courses I had in graduate school.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Educational, practical, and understandable

Great to listen at the gym, on a plane, or at the comfort of you home.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Leadership Starter Tool Kit

What did you love best about Transformational Leadership: How Leaders Change Teams, Companies, and Organizations?

I was thrust into a leadership role without any orientation. This was a great overview of all the many considerations that go into being a good leader and earning the respect of your subordinates. The breadth of the subject helped me to identify the areas that were not “natural” for me so that I can conduct focused research on my specific areas of improvement. This also illuminated some past mistakes that I hadn’t realized I made. Very informative and motivating. Maybe not everyone can be a great leader, but everyone can be a BETTER leader and this provides some areas of focus.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Too Long for this amount of substance

It is good summary of many books without getting into he details of any of them.
Many parts are obvious for someone that already had some managerial experience or read several books. There are several interesting parts but 12 h is way too long , all meaningful things could be covered in 4h max.
Mr Roberto speaks loudly or rather shouts as he would do in real lecture but it is very annoying and tiring to listen someone talking in this way for more than hour. I would prefer normal reading with intonation.

7 of 9 people found this review helpful

Excellent to listen

Excellent teaching. Review of recent and not recent studies on leadership. This audiobook gives directions for further studies on many issues of leadership. Well narrated by Prof. Roberto

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

overall good

started slow and quite dry with theory and models and then got much more interesting

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Fabulous & insightful

One or perhaps THE best book on leadership. Great narration, story telling and research. Must read if you wish to transform and change your team, business unit or organisation to perform at their best.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Really interesting, great business read

I loved the attention to nuance and lack of dogma. Covers leadership from several points of view and offers concrete, solid and actionable advice.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Amazing. Just what I was looking for.

The pace was just right. Highly recommended. I will be attending several stepping up leadership modules over the next few months. I look forward to making is of the material from this audiobook.