An experience which has given me an opportunity to be a better leader in the future

Hi all, I'm planning to apply for Chevening Scholarship this year. Any feedback would be very appreciated. Thanks!

MY LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE

My leadership experience started when I was young. It was my parents who taught me to hold on three things of leadership values: manage, responsible and committed. It started with simple tasks. For instance, they kept on reminding me to make up the bed after waking up, to prepare the books for morrow's lectures, et cetera. These responsibilities became a starting point for me to have bigger responsibilities and commitments as I grew up.

During high school, I was a member of the student council where I got a chance to become a head of organization leadership training committee. Such an opportunity had given me capabilities to manage an event. A few years later, when I was in college, I was active in a music club and the student union. I became the head of an event organizer for campus's music event and the head of human resources division in Math's student union. These activities entitled me to manage a bigger team with bigger goals which were harder as I could really feel more pressure than my previous experience in event management. Those experiences had helped me to be more skillful on project management where I could be more responsible and committed to delivering the best result.

Months after college, I landed a job as a xxx-role in a management consulting company where I'm currently working at. Applying the three values of leadership in my work, I managed to deliver my best performance and deliver my work on time. In result, I have moved up the ladder by becoming a Senior xxx-role. In the beginning of my new role, I had an important deliverable for a client with a very tight deadline. I'd been appointed as a team leader who's responsible to make sure our work meets the deadline, also I had to manage junior xxx-role by ensuring the quality of their deliverables. I guided them to how to do the analyses, by explaining about the client, the context, the problem and the approach to solve the problem. It's very hard and exhausting, but I felt so happy since I knew that they were learned something through the process. In the end, I successfully delivered the result to the client on time. The client was very satisfied with our result and after the meeting, my manager was really impressed with my leadership performance. I was very happy with this experience because I made an impact not only for the client, but also for my team and my company. After that project, I've been given another follow-up project from the client and another responsibility as a second-line manager. Not only being responsible for team's work for deliverables, I also have to be responsible for career development of other junior team member. These responsibilities are very exciting and challenging for me as I must learn to manage both project and people. This ongoing experience has given me an opportunity to be a better leader in the future.

Hi Natasya!

You have put forward some very relevant and good ideas in this essay.
The main problem that I find is grammatical errors and incorrect usage of Tenses.

For Example - Para 1 : My leadership experience started during my early childhood ( Considering that you are in your early 20s, I felt childhood would be more appropriate). It was my parents who taught me the 3 golden leadership values : Management, responsibility and commitment ( The usage of manage, responsible.... is not apt).

You've written well about how you started off from small tasks and moved on to bigger assignments. Add more info on how these activities helped to inculcate new habits and qualities in you.

Eg- You talk about completing deadlines and making the client happy. Also mention that these activities helped you understand more about time management and so on.

You can always conclude with a statement saying that you greatly appreciate the opportunity if given the scholarship and would look forward to use your leadership experience in whatever field you plan to pursue.

So, all in all, do a grammatical check and change certain sentences.

Good Luck! :)

I believe you should talk more about your professional experience, maybe explore more about how you are now in charge of the career development of your junior staff.

Overall, your essay is solid.

However, I would recommend slightly changing your intro. Maybe use a hook to grab the reader's attention. Think of a story about when you were young and how leadership played a role in it.

Natasya, just present the discussion in terms of your professional background. Tell the reviewer what company you are connected with, what your current position in the company, and what your duties and responsibilities entail. You need to use only the professional background as the focus of your essay because that is more attuned to the prompt requirements. Right now, you are presenting short-cuts to your leadership and influencing discussion. Since you have been getting promoted on the job, each stage of work that you entered into granted you the opportunity to grow as a leader and influencer, so you have to present how that happened every step of the way in order to strengthen your presentation and catch the eye of the reviewer. The problem is not so much your language at this point but the presentation of the information relevant to the prompt. You can edit the grammar after you have properly aligned the content with the prompt expectations.

@maknae33

Hi Natasya,
I think you can develop your third paragraph more, instead of discussing about your second paragraph because it is more relevant to the issue asked by Chevening

In addition, I don't think that by deleting your second paragraph, your essay will suffer. It is because you have put some great ideas in your third paragraph. However, you should develop your third paragraph in a greater detail.

Good luck with your application :)

@DoctorWho @kkalkntar @Dood76 @Holt @ervina92

Hi all, thank you for each of your feedback. It was really helpful!
I made changes for my essay which I took a note to expand my story focusing on my professional leadership experience.
Many thanks if you can give me one or two feedbacks for my brand-new essay!

BRAND NEW ESSAY: MY LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE

In my view, a leadership holds three important values: management, responsibility, and commitment. I started to develop these values during my school life. I gained some knowledge on leadership by involved in student's club and student's committee. In these activities, I learned how to manage and organize some event in my high school and my campus. Despite I've been through a few of leadership experience as a student, my leadership training is still ongoing until this day.

The most valuable leadership experience happened in my career as an BA. A little bit of background, I'm an employee in one of management consulting company as a Senior BA. In this company, they encourage their employee to develop their leadership by improving these skills: managing yourself, managing project, managing people and managing client. My early days as Junior BA was my training ground of the "managing yourself" stage. At first, my manager gave me a lot of analyses to do and he taught me the step by step about the approach and his expected result. Slowly I learned not only about how to do the analysis and gain a valuable insight, I also learned how to manage myself professionally. This means that I learned to manage my work, manage my time to finish it on time and commit to give the best result. I focused on managing myself for around 1 year until I got promoted.

In the beginning of my new role as Senior BA, I had an important deliverable for a client with a very tight deadline. I'd been appointed as a team leader who's responsible to make sure our work meets the deadline and ensuring the quality of deliverables from junior BAs. I guided them to how to do the analyses, by explaining about the client, the problem and our approach for the solution. It's very exhausting, but I felt so happy since I knew that they learned something through the process. In the end, I successfully delivered the result to the client on time. The client was very satisfied with our result and my manager was really impressed with my leadership performance. I was very happy with this experience because I made an impact not only for the client but also for my team and my company. I was proud of myself and my team for the achievement. I realized that I successfully made through the stage of "managing project". After that project, I've been given another follow-up project and responsibility as a second-line manager. Not only being responsible for team's work for deliverables, I also responsible for career development of other BAs. These responsibilities, including the "managing people" stage, are very exciting and challenging for me as I must learn to manage both project and people. This ongoing experience has given me an opportunity to be a better leader in the future. I'm looking forward to using my leadership capability in this field as a proud Chevening scholar.

@DoctorWho
@Holt
Hi guys, could you help me to review the latest essay that I posted here? Thank you very much!

Natasya, the managing yourself stage is not really necessary in this instance because there is no such thing as self-leadership. You just have to do your job. The fact that you learned how to manage your time and other job related needs, in relation to yourself is not really leadership. That is just proper time management. Go directly to the management of the team. You have relayed a pretty solid explanation of your leadership style but it lacks a strong influencing style in the presentation. Try to discuss some problems that you had within the team. A true and influential leader thrives on conflict resolution. That is not really reflected in this essay. In fact, the management you had to do of the team falls under "easy" in this case. Look at the other leadership and influencing essays here and you will see how your essay makes the job you are doing almost like child's play. Which does not really enhance your leadership skills and influencing abilities.

@Holt
Hi Mary thanks a lot! I will revise my essay according to your feedback.