Essay Example: Evaluating the Leadership Effectiveness of Adrienne Carrol Conlon

Leadership is a subject that is worth consideration, especially in modern times. It is imperative to have effective leaders as they give organizations and societies the best direction to follow. Leadership is an art that makes an individual motivate people towards achieving a common goal. In organizational settings, leaders show their juniors the path to follow to meet the set goas. In observation of what leadership entails, I established that Adrienne Carroll Conlon is an effective leader. Currently, she manages Business Graduate MBA programs alongside the associate dean and the dean. Besides her current position, Conlon has worked in different organizations heading successful departments and activities. Evaluating her effectiveness as a leader will be based on different aspects of excellence, among them being clarity of thought, personal integrity, and the ability to handle people in the right manner.

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Definition of Leadership

Since different authors and theorists have widely discussed leadership, its definition varies. However, in all cases, it narrows down to the ability to offer people the right direction, which offers them growth and addresses their needs. Ideally, leaders are problem-solvers who are dependent on heavily by organizations and societies. Without leaders, groups would not have a succinct direction. Exploring the essence of leadership, Surji (2015) indicated that leadership is about influence and creating a visible impact in a population of people. The author informs that a leader must assume responsibility and withstand differences among the people he or she leads. Essentially, leaders are valuable assets because, without them, organizations would not pursue a common goal. Considering that in any setting, people have different perspectives, without leaders, enabling a consensus among all of them would not be feasible. However, with a leader, all the views are considered, and the best direction is followed, giving the organization enough room for growth.

Besides, harnessing different views and enabling unity in an organization, leaders motivate the people they lead. Eriksson and Jonsson (2016) indicated that leaders are responsible for the people who are accountable to them. Thus, they have the ability to change their mindsets, improve their knowledge, and motivate them to be better. Even when leaders can offer followers the right direction, they cannot be successful if they are not motivated. Apak and Gumus (2015) revealed that a leader should be an individual whose status and abilities are not questionable to the people they lead. Therefore, they should have the necessary knowledge capacity and drive that makes followers also to aspire to be like them. To a great extent, leadership affects the productivity of an organization based on the idea that it determines how motivated employees in the organization are and, subsequently, their output.

Process for Measuring Leadership

Though there lacks a single manner in which leadership can be evaluated succinctly, the excellence of a leader can be evaluated in the context of their thinking mechanism, how they treat individuals, and their personal integrity or commitment to duty. Clarity of thought is the ability of a leader to maintain stability even when they are under pressure. Leaders must navigate in the unpredictable world with clear thinking even when they face unprecedented stresses of life (Menkins, 2011). The ability to maintain clarity of thought underscores the essence of the leader to sail a group of people in the right direction, even when situations are critical. Their clarity of thought allows them to build confidence in their followers and their juniors, allowing the organizations they lead to still stay afloat regardless of the hurdles of life.

Additionally, how leaders treat people reflects their effectiveness. It clearly showcases the values they hold and how suited they are to be in that position. The core values of leadership ideally are all centered on the human factor. Among them are respected, making a difference, courage, humility, service, and wisdom (Hao & Yadanifard, 2015). A leader who does not treat their juniors or followers in the right manner weakens their own leadership as employees adopt a negative attitude towards them. A leader who aspires to make a change in an organization must treat others as they would also like to be treated (Surji, 2016). Therefore, evaluating their effectiveness, one of the best approaches is to observe how the leader maintains a positive relationship with their juniors.

Moreover, the personal integrity of a leader reflects how effective they are. Integrity refers to honesty, trustworthiness, and reliability. Huberts (2018) writes, "Integrity means that a professional exercise his tasks adequately, carefully and responsibly, taking into account all relevant interests." This specific metric of evaluation is actually not based on the relationship between the leader and the organization but who the leader really is. It seeks to observe whether a leader is concerned about moral behavior, or they are not concerned at all. Ideally, to evaluate the personal integrity of a leader, it is necessary to observe how the leader behaves while at or out of work. Utilizing authority appropriately, for example, is one way to judge a leader who has integrity. On the flip side, regardless of whether they bring effective results, a leader who is not morally upright cannot be said to be fully effective.

Effectiveness of the Assigned Leader

In view of the metrics, as mentioned earlier in evaluating the effectiveness of a leader, Adrienne Carroll Conlon vindicates as well-established. Conlon has the clarity of thought, and it has helped her to rise in different levels of leadership. Her clarity of thought made her be considered as a necessary asset for the Molloy College school of business. She makes critical decisions that entail program management at the organization, recruitment, and advising students. Her clarity of thought has also enabled her to efficiently create and manage all MBA databases for GPA, credits, courses, dual degrees, and tracking. Besides, Conlon's clarity of thought has been seen beyond school based on the fact that she is an activist who has written against sexual harassment in the workplace. In all these instances, Conlon has been working under pressure, and her ability to yield results, regardless, indicates that she is a stable leader.

Furthermore, Conlon evidently treats people in the right manner. It is by treating people effectively that she has managed to develop students who can make strategic, effective, and management decisions with information systems. Since 2009 until now, Conlon has been responsible for developing and teaching the business internship course. Besides, to make her students successful in the professional space, the leader ensures that they are prepared for the transition from academic settings to professional environments. She strives to make her students equipped with skills and knowledge that ensures they do not encounter hitches that they cannot handle. Also, Conlon, as the MBA program, communicates with students, organizes their training, handles orientations, honors society, and coordinates graduates and alumni events. Essentially, Conlon renders her service in full consideration of the leadership of multiple values of leadership, such as courage, wisdom, and respect.

More instrumentally, Conlon's ability as a leader is reflected in her integrity. A leader who has integrity is trustworthy and reliable. In the school of business for Molloy College, Conlon has been a top leader for more than ten years now. Other than just being in the organization for long, the leader has successfully managed to review critical aspects of the school of business, including budgeting, strategy, curriculum, and development of programs. Conlon's integrity, to a great extent, is based on her educational and professional background, which is well-established as she has sought several certifications and acquired instrumental knowledge. Besides, being disadvantaged as an immigrant as her parents were born in Ireland and moved to the United States, Conlon strives to maintain her purpose and treats everyone right regardless of their diversity divide. Therefore, her personal commitment toward improving the outcomes of the Molloy school of business evidently makes her an effective leader.

Conclusion

Leadership is important for organizations and societies based on the fact that it is needed in giving directions to followers who would be largely disintegrated. It unites people around a common goal and gives them the energy to pursue it to success. The effectiveness of a leader, therefore, is based on their clarity of thought, their personal integrity, and their ability to treat others right, including their juniors. The majority of the authors concerned about leadership uphold the three perspectives on the basis that they indicate the values a leader upholds and how they can influence and motivate the employees to follow them as they lead by example. Thus, taking account of these standpoints, Adrienne Carroll Conlon is an effective leader. Besides, as a leader who has been at the top echelon of the Molloy School of business for more than a decade and led multiple successes, Conlon, has clearly indicated that she has personal integrity, has the clarity of thought, and handles people in the right manner. She remains an asset to the organization and currently manages the department alongside the deputy dean and the dean. Therefore, aspiring leaders, especially in the field of education, would be successful if they followed the example of Conlon.

References

Apak, S., & Gümüs, S. (2015). Research about the effect of the leadership qualities of public administrators on the motivation of the employees. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210, 368-377. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.384

Eriksson, F., & Jonsson, C. (2016). Transformational leadership's effect on motivation and trust: A case study of Volvo sales region EMEA. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A940304&dswid=-4735

Hao, M. J., & Yazdanifard, R. (2015). How effective leadership can facilitate change in organizations through improvement and innovation. Global journal of management and business research. https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume15/1-How-Effective-Leadership.pdf

Huberts, L. W. J. C. (2018). Integrity: What it is and Why it is Important. Public integrity, 20(sup1), S18-S32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2018.1477404

Menkes, J. (2011). Maintaining clarity of thought: Leading better under pressure. Leader to Leader, 2011(62), 22-26. https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.488

Surji, K. M. (2015). Understanding Leadership and Factors that Influence Leaders' Effectiveness. European Journal of Business and Management, 7(33), 154-167; doi: 10.7176/EJBM/7-33-2015-03