By Allison O’Donnell, Written Communications Specialist, UConn School of Engineering
At the beginning of the Spring 2020 semester, JLLA invested in Mind Garden’s leadership evaluation tool to quantify the success of the group’s curriculum. On Tuesday, May 26, members received their individual results and decided on leadership development plans moving forward.
Vice President Stephany Santos explained that “This [program] is to determine where we, as individuals, are. Then we can decide where we want to be and decide how to get there.”
The program, Mind Garden’s multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ), provides a holistic assessment of individual leadership by comparing self-assessment to assessment by: higher level, lower level and same level peers. Comparing each of these evaluations will create individualized action plans to achieve transformational leaders.
JLLA has cultivated leaders with various personalities and leadership styles and values diversity in leaders. The program will further adapt to individual needs by creating “focus groups” based on specific skills that members would like to improve.
“A lot of us joined JLLA to be proactive in our development, which is why I think our results indicate that the majority of us don’t wait till something is going wrong till we fix it,” said JLLA President Randi Mendes.
Members will continue to evaluate their growth in following semesters to measure the success of the leadership curriculum and confirm the effectiveness of the program. To apply to JLLA, apply here.