Clune Funding Company: Leadership Development and Evaluation Report

This report provides an analysis of leadership development practices at Clune Funding Company, established in 1998. It addresses the challenges of maintaining growth in a competitive financial market and the need for effective leadership. The report explores alternative leadership development practices, such as defining leadership audiences, developing a performance management plan, and defining leadership competencies. It discusses the suitability of outsourcing development practices to understand market trends and enhance development programs. The report also emphasizes the importance of leadership evaluation for assessing the quality of leadership and return on investments. Recommendations are provided to enhance the company's growth and development, highlighting the significance of performance management plans and outsourcing for Clune Fund's success in the financial sector.

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Executive summary
Founded and established in 1998, Clune Funding Company is one of the largest financial
company in the global market today. Leadership has been an issue as the company struggles to
maintain its growth level in the market, with increased demands of financial needs from the
target market, there is need for more leaders to help in feeling the gaps. As a result, effective
leadership is key to help in providing the services required as they achieve the company’s set
goals. Leadership development practices are key to ensuring that all leaders and employees in the
company perform as required as they carry out their various different roles. Performance
management plan is a key leadership practice as it ensures that the leaders and employees track
of performance is maintained, provides a platform for sharing all challenges and experiences for
support. Due to technical change in the business market, there are various changes and trends
that influences customer’s satisfaction. Not all companies that may be able to understand or
gather information about the new trends, to enhance this, outsourcing of company’s development
plans from other companies is very important. In case of Clune Fund, information about new
developments, challenges and programs in the financial market are very crucial to ensure that its
sizeable growth level is maintained. Leadership evaluation is important to help understand the
quality of leadership given in any company, this should be done effectively to ensure good
results are achieved. This is an effective way of evaluating the rate of returns investments if any
and what contributed to its achievement. Clune Fund should ensure to adopt and implement
recommendations provided to enhancing the company’s rate of growth and development.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................2
1.0 Introduction...........................................................................................................................................4
2.0 Discussion..............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Alternative leadership development practices..................................................................................5
2.2 Suitability of outsourcing development practices.............................................................................7
2.3 Leadership development practices evaluation..................................................................................9
3.0 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................10
4.0 Recommendations...............................................................................................................................11
5.0 References...........................................................................................................................................12

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1.0 Introduction
Clune Fund Services Company was founded in the year 1998 and it’s based in IFSC. Its main
goal and objective was to provide financial services to its customers as a way of enhancing a
positive believe of development among the many individuals in the financial sector. With one
able chairman Mr. Clune, the company has been able to provide more than just management and
investment services to its people or rather the customers. The chairman with other directors as
well as board members have great experiences in terms of financial management having worn
many awards due to their contribution in the finance sector. The Irish government as well has
been of great support to the company by providing a health environment as well as finances
where need be for them to offer services to the citizens. The company with the help of senior
management has been able to employ able employees who have together enhanced sizeable
growth of the company. This is a positive sign of good leadership of the company as well as
determined employees to deliver towards the set goals and objectives.
Leadership refers to act of controlling or guiding in authority to giving directions by a leader in
relation to set objectives and goals of the company. Clune Fund has a set of senior managers who
have great experience in the field of finance, making it easier for them to enhance good
leadership. Though with a sizeable rate of growth, the company is experiencing a range of
leadership development issues due to high demand of promotion as a result of increasing
production activities within the company that needs to be managed. As a result the management
has adopted some leadership development practices to help fill the leadership gaps, like
appointing leaders based on merit of performance and experiences (Frawley, Favaloro &
Schulenkorf, 2018).

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Discussion below gives more alternatives of leadership development practices that the company
can adopt to enhance development. The need for outsourcing development practices and how
best leadership alternative practices can be evaluated to ensure they give a return on investments.
2.0 Discussion
2.1 Alternative leadership development practices
Leadership development refers to the act of enhancing qualities used to lead or rather carry out
management activities in a given company or organization. Some of this qualities include proper
communication, ability to motivate employees or those in junior positions and other management
skills to those who may not have these skills and are in leadership positions. Leadership
development practices on the other hand refers to emerging trends in management role that helps
in dealing with main as well as minor risks and priorities in relation to set goals and objectives.
Many companies and organizations are concerned about their level of growth, how they can be
able to sustain it as the targets demand are increasing more and more each day (Boseman, 2008).
As a result, they have adopted various leadership development practices that are best suited to
their goals. Some of these alternative practices that Clune Fund can adopt include the following;
Understand and define audiences of respective leaders in the company. If there is more than one
leader in any given organization or company, it means that there is more than one set of
audiences. To ensure there is no conflict of any kind in terms of leadership audiences, it’s
important to ensure there is a clear definition of leadership audiences and their responsibilities
towards their respective goals. Clune Fund has many arising leaders who are appointed on merit
of experience and demand for promotion, this has no clear definition of whom they are supposed
to lead and the uniqueness of their role from that of others (Gandolfi & Stone, 2017). The
management should ensure that they define all the different roles to be carried out, the leaders of

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those departmental roles, whom they are supposed to lead and the expected outcomes of both the
leaders and their audiences. This is important to both the senior management and the junior
leaders as well as their audiences, with everyone understanding their roles and responsibilities
it’s easier to achieve the set goals as there is minimal conflict if any of interest in leadership.
Develop a performance management plan. To ensure that all managers and leaders within the
company carry out their roles efficiently and effectively and according to set goals, a
performance management plan is very important. Regular open meetings and dialogues between
the senior managers and other leaders within the company enhance their participation in sharing
new ideas challenges and other engagements that enhance their experiences. This is important as
it helps in monitoring their progress, understanding their strengths and weakness to identify areas
they need support as well as more training. As a financial company, it’s hard for some leaders to
always understand the emerging trends and needs of their customers. Example, rates and interest
in the market in terms of buying and selling currency and their customers’ expectations. To help
in this, performance management plan practice enhances sharing between the leaders to help
understand the trends and customers’ expectations for a better output performance to the
company’s development.
Define development program and leadership competencies for each leader. Leadership
competencies refers to skills required by each leader to enhancing robust growth and
development as a result of good performance. Development programs in this case acts as a
signature role for each leader to enable the management track their performance in relation to
their level of competency. This is a very crucial leadership development practice that Clune Fund
can adopt to ensure that all leaders perform according to their level of qualifications. No
underperformance is required in this case unless in a very rare case where the leader may not be

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able to deliver. Leadership competencies while electing a leader is very important to a company
like Clune Funding, this ensures that the leaders elected have a role of ensuring growth and
actualization of their vision in line with the set goals. Development programs on the other hand
ensure a continuous, active and progressive development phase of every leader within the
company in line with their level of qualifications which is very important.
Most effective practice
Findings indicate that the minor costly errors indicated from the case study are as a result of
mistakes made by leaders who need support to be able to enhance their roles in their respective
departments. As a result, performance management plan as one of the leadership development
practices is a good recommendation to Clune Fund Company. This would be the most effective
alternative practice to the company as it ensures all leaders performance is tracked, experiences
and challenges shared to enhance leadership growth. Leaders who have great experiences and are
highly qualified for the jobs also face challenges that needs support from other leaders in their
various departments. To enhance this, sharing of their challenges gives them opportunities to
gain experiences and support from other leaders hence placing performance management plan
practice at its best and effective position in support of growth and development (Sarwar, 2013).
2.2 Suitability of outsourcing development practices
Development practices are shared beliefs that are believed to have a greater contribution in
business growth and development. Outsourcing is very great and suitable idea for companies on
development practices to enhance their level of performance due to various issues like sharing of
ideas. Development practices in the business world are formed from discovered ideas as well as
challenges that either support or negatively affect the rate of development in various business
units. Outsourcing in this case will help the management to understand business ideas and
challenges that are likely to affect their performances (Yukl, 2012). Coming up with solutions of

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any identified challenges and implementation of discovered ideas is important for all companies
who enhance outsourcing of development practices.
Enhances the level of company’s growth and development. Through outsourcing, a company is
able to understand the emerging trends in the market as well as the customers’ expectations. In
the current business market, there are various emerging trends which are as a result of increasing
technical development that characterize most of the services to be given to the customers. If a
company does not understand this issues in the current market whether global or local, it’s likely
to remain underdeveloped. Outsourcing will enable the various companies like Clune Funds to
act according to the position of the current business trends for its development (Harkins, et al,
2016).
Enhance development programs. There are various existing companies in the same line but have
different programs. Through outsourcing, a company like Clune is able to learn of more
programs that can be adopted and enhance growth. Example of such programs include online
financial marketing where the company and their clients never meet physically but conduct all
their activities online. Another one is the biometric identification of both leaders and clients in a
given company, here leaders, other employees and clients are identified using their fingerprints
or other unique prints of their body. This enhances the level of security to the company as well as
saves time used in looking for records kept for individual’s identification (Hoffman & Vorhies,
2017).
Leadership development practices. To enhance a company’s growth and maintain it, efficient and
effective leadership practices are required, these practices varies depending on the kind of
services offered by a given company in the market. Example, services given by Clune Funding
cannot be the same as that of a textile company. To enhance these services, Companies in the

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same line share their leadership development practices to enhance their level of growth by
curbing the arising challenges that may affect them (Godinez & Leslie, 2015). Through
outsourcing of learning and development practices, Companies like Clune are able to learn and
acquire new leadership practices that can be implemented to enhance their leadership scheme
important to maintaining their level of development.
2.3 Leadership development practices evaluation
Evaluation means assessment activities carried out to gauge the level of effectiveness of a given
leadership practice put in place. There are various methods that can be used to carry out
evaluation of leadership development practices alternatives discussed above for Clune Fund
Company (Parr, Lanza & Bernthal, 2016). Two of these include use assessment tools like survey
or questionnaires and carrying out a leadership stimulation exercise. Surveys or questionnaire
consists of questions administered to employees and are required to give answer, being the
leadership audience employees understand the activities carried out by their leaders and are in a
better position to give information regarding their duties (Engelbrecht, Van Aswegen & Theron,
2005). The questions administered are in line with the roles given to a certain leader and they are
expected to act upon, they may be closed or open-ended depending on the intensity of the
question. Answers given by the employees help in assessing whether the level of leadership
given is in accordance to the leaders level of qualification and the set goals of the company.
Leadership stimulation method is a leadership evaluation technique where the senior manager
carries out assessment activity with the intended leader. In this case, the senior manager engages
a conversation with the leader face to face, through a phone call or a video and may ask
questions regarding to the leaders role and responsibilities. Though this method is used it’s not
highly recommended as the leader may give biased information in cases where the senior
manager is not careful. The results or feedback given by the leader gives the senior management

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information whether the leadership is in line with the company’s expectations and goals or not
(Akins, et al, 2013).
Metrics used
In most cases, metrics used in determining investments return are assessing the quality of
company’s practices and methods applied in relation to the set objectives and goals. Leadership
practices put in place are in relation to the set goals of the company, as a result, returns on
investments can be measured with the positivity of the present leadership and the registered level
of growth. Assessments carried out from time to time are important to ensure that, the practices
of leadership put in place or enhanced in the company are in line with the desired level of
investment. Cost applied in enhancing leadership, should give results that are directly influencing
high growth of the company indicating a return of investments (Chami-Malaeb & Garavan,
2013). Poor leadership practices evaluation results indicates that there is no cost effectiveness in
the level of leadership training applied by the senior management hence no investment return.
However, balancing between formulaic and statistical methods of leadership assessment may not
be effective as required. This may bring resistance as some may argue the assessment was not
fair and to some it could be fair. Example, assessment done via survey may at time be biased
because in cases where the employee and the leader do not relate well information given may not
be correct and also where the employee is not consistently careful about the leader’s
responsibilities. To overcome this, it’s better for the senior management to carry out assessment
using biased free methods. This will enhance fairness, positivity and good relations among the
employees and leaders as it enables a clear way of observing returns investments (AlShamsi,
2016).

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3.0 Conclusion
Effective leadership is crucial towards actualization process of the company’s goals and
objectives. Leadership development practices enhanced in a company influences the time used
and quality of achievements registered. As a global company Clune Fund has a responsibility of
maintaining its sizeable level of growth, this can be enhanced by ensuring that alternative
leadership development practices discussed above are applied and implemented. This will help
solve the issues detected in leadership towards achieving the set goals. Outsourcing of
development practices is very important to ensuring that the company understands the market
structure and its requirement as well as learn from other company’s important features for
development. Effective leadership results cannot be realized without evaluation, to ensure this,
the senior management should ensure effective and efficient evaluation important for gauging
leadership activities within the company. This evaluation enables the company to realize whether
the practices put in place are effective or not depending on the rate of investment returns.
4.0 Recommendations
Clune Fund Company should ensure that all leaders and employees working towards achieving
the company’s goals are qualified depending on the position they hold as well as responsibilities
given to them. This is important to enhance easier management control as each one understands
what to be done where and when as well as the expected results.
Should enhance performance management plan. To ensure that all leaders and employees
perform according to their levels of qualification, the company’s senior management should
adopt a performance management plan to help keep track of their performances.

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Clune Fund should ensure to use efficient and effective leadership evaluation methods to help
give accurate finding. This will in return make it easier to evaluate on investments return.
The company should encourage more outsourcing learning of development practices. This is
important to ensuring that all trends in the market are incorporated in its production activities
towards achieving its set goals. This ensures that the company’s sizeable rate of growth is highly
maintained, enhancing customers satisfaction as well as adopt new ways of dealing with
challenges that may be identified.
5.0 References
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