Business leaders have the ability to create opportunities, build products and systems, and inspire others to action. Please describe a time you created an opportunity, built a new product or system, or inspired others to act. The example you provide and elaborate upon may come from your professional endeavors, academic pursuits or civic engagements. (500 word maximum)
As far as I am concerned, a good leader develops a comprehensive overview of the situation and monitors the whole process; a successful and commendable leader masters the essential skills about motivating others to work effectively, and hence make a due contribution to the common success of the team.
One of the most typical examples demonstrating my leadership can be referred to the experience that I motivated other team members to take an active part and ensured the success of the report "An Analysis of the Current Community Banks in China" in the competition National Challenge for College Students.
To establish a competitive participation team, I specially selected other five talented team members who had expertise in different areas, including creative thinking, quantitative research, graphic design, copywriting and etc. In this way, I secured a solid foundation for our later success.
As a democratic leader, I chose to start our preparation with a brainstorm meeting to utilize the collective wisdom of our team to the largest extent. Through the brainstorm, we decided to conduct research of the community banks in Nanjing, Nantong, and Chongqing. The first phase was to collect data by the method of questionnaire in an aim to improve the quality of our research. I allocated tasks to different team members according to their living addresses because it was the summer holiday.
What is worth mentioning is the progress of a team member, Ying, both professionally and mentally, with my encouragement. When asked about the suggestions of the interviewees, she blurred her words. I further inquired her about the working period of the staff in community banks. She gave me the information about the traditional banks. She felt sorry for not conducting the research in person, but only by internet. I convinced her to treat the research project with earnestness by making the point that one can learn a lot from this research. Under my guidance, she conducted the first investigation successfully and was thrilled to visit another community bank. With much effort and enthusiasm, she finished the most comprehensive research among the team members. In addition, she even offered to stay in Nanjing to conduct further research.
Moreover, one team member could not take part in on-site investigation because of academic reasons. Therefore, I re-allocated the investigation tasks and sent her to interview students in the Business School of Nanjing University and made her in charge of the logistics.
In our later work, I always endeavored to create a democratic and cooperative environment in our team. I kept a smooth communication channel between my team members and myself. Under my guidance, everyone was able to share his or her opinions with me via different communication methods. In such an agreeable team environment, we finally accomplished a high-quality research report and ranked top 20 among the 200 competing teams.( Does this ending is too short and not powerful ?)
I'm just an undergraduate, so please note that my advice may be unnecessary or even inaccurate.
I admire your writing skills, by the way. Whoa. I wish I had such a straightforward style of writing. Envious.
Anyways, I had the impression that you give a bit too much background? I think the 2nd~4th paragraph can be shortened a little. You can use the word count to answer the prompt more explicitly.
In the conclusion, you mentioned what you accomplished as a leader (e.g. democratic and cooperative environment, ranking top 20 out of 200). Perhaps you can add what you learned from creating the opportunity. After all, you did mention how you faced challenges during the competition; surely you must have learned something from the experience. You briefly mentioned it in the earlier paragraphs implicitly, but I think it would be nice if you can restate it at the end.
This is also just personal preference, but I believe the second-to-last paragraph ("Moreover, one team member...") doesn't add too much to the essay. Just focusing on a single topic (the team member, Ying) should be enough, as long as you give it depth.
Okay, this essay certainly delivers all of the components of your prompt requirements. However, the fact that you only finished in the top 20 of the team rankings makes me wonder if this is the most effective and relevant story that you have to share with the reviewer. Somehow, I feel like the kind of story that this prompt response should contain must represent a successful or winning undertaking on your part. It would add to the strength of your story and allow the reviewer to consider you an accomplished person or professional who knows how to get his teammates to deliver the desired work results.
If you don't have any experience that can show off your winning leadership skills, then we can just edit this essay to make it sound more successful than it actually is. After all, first impressions count in any essay so if we can deliver your winning personality and leadership style very early in the essay, then this statement should become even more beneficial to your application. So, let me know if you can revise the experience or if I should just help you edit this current essay so we can make it stronger :-)
Siyu, I think that the experience that you have with the badminton team should help enhance this essay. The reasons why I believe that it will help strengthen your essay is because as the leader of a team. you had to accomplish a number of things in order to lead your team to victory. The first thing you had to accomplish was the camaraderie of the individual members in order for them to form an effective team. Once the team was formed, you had to encourage them to work together, specially during the doubles matches in order to ensure a victory. Then of course, there is the fact that you were the person who led them to victory through encouragement and (maybe) creating the strategy for game play. All of which are factors that, when put together, creates the perfect example of a person with exemplary leadership skills.
So, what I would like you to do is revise the essay to reflect those points that I just mentioned. Highlight the fact that you were the team captain and never forget to mention the obstacles or hardships that came your way as you tried to establish the badminton team. That will establish the fact that you have the ability to inspire others to action and to victory in the process. Once you establish such an image for yourself, then your essay will be one that carries memorable instances that the reviewer just might take note of and refer to once it comes time to consider your application for admission :-)
Can we work on a new version of your essay? If you are willing to write it, I am more than willing to edit it :-)
Hi, vangiespen
Thank you so much. You are so considerate! I wonder if we write the badminton team, it may be not related to the finance? The research I done is related to finance and can make compensate my graduate major(International economic and trade rather than finance). What I want to apply is the master of finance. If this point is not matter. I can rewrite the essay in the tomorrow. I need your advice.:-D
Well. the prompt is not specific to just the course you want to take. According to the prompt:The example you provide and elaborate upon may come from your professional endeavors, academic pursuits or civic engagements. So if you consider the badminton story, it falls under your civic engagements since it is an extra curricular activity. It is still an acceptable topic for the prompt.
In all honesty, the reason that I would like you to use badminton is because of the vast array of leadership abilities that it will allow you to showcase in your essay. It is a civic participation that builds upon your qualities as a born leader and allows you to conceptualize strategies for winning in tournaments, inspiring your teammates, and allows you to create an opportunity for your team or pursuit to come out on top. However, if you feel that you would rather work with the more academic and professional aspect of the prompt, then I will work with you on that too :-)
