Scholarship / Beside assertive and bold, leaders should also listen the more experienced and knowledgeable [6]

leadership and influencing essay

Hi. i'm trying to apply for chevening too. Hope anyone can comment on mine.

Throughout my education years and until now, I have had several leadership responsibilities ranging from club treasurer, liaison person for department functions as well as numerous courses. I have always been, should I say 'marked' to lead a crowd whenever there is an upcoming project or event.

During my A-levels I was in charge of organizing a weekend trip to a nearby waterfall. I planned and delegated a few task to ensure it ran smoothly, from sourcing our food for the day to transportation which I dealt with a local company. Come day of trip, everything went smoothly and we arrived at the base of the waterfall without hassle but our journey had just begun. To get to the waterfall, we had to hike approximately 10km and it was proving tough for some. All along the way, they kept asking me whether we've reached our destination and I in turn kept encouraging and pushing them onwards saying we were quite near even though we've only covered half the distance. Getting them to push themselves to not quit paid off handsomely when we were rewarded with mothers' nature beauty.

During my first 3 years, I worked as logistic pharmacist and had to manage the procurement of hospital medicines. The pharmacy logistic unit is heavily staffed and consist of diverse characters and workers. As a leader, I believe one should be accountable for what their subordinates or team player does. Example, there was once an incident where my clerk had asked for temporary absence from a particular course she had to go to and I had permitted it. It turns out, the organizing committee required a written approval first before she was permitted to be absent and in turn my clerk was reprimanded for her actions. On knowing the action of the organizer, I explained to them the situation and in turn provided them with a written explanation claiming the mistake.

A recent event gave me an opportunity to embrace that call of being a leader again. I am involved in a national committee, representing my home state. Now this committee consisted of renal pharmacist from all over Malaysia with most of them having experience more than 6 years in the field. I as compared to them, am quite new with only 3 years' experience. Earlier this year, one of the agenda was to discuss about this years' World kidney day events which were many. One of it was giving a talk on a television channel which would be broadcasted live; the talk main goals is to enlighten the public on the dangerousness of taking herbal supplements not regulated by the authorities. We had the topic, knew who our main audience would be, which TV station that was going to screen it, all that was left was selecting the presenter. You would have thought that an opportunity of going on TV would be grasp quickly, but no one wanted to do it. After a quick round table of asking everyone on their willingness to do it, the room fell quiet for a while. Seeing that the issue was not going to settle, I raised my hand and said 'I'll do it'.

For me, leaders other than being assertive and bold, should also be respectful of the more experienced and knowledgeable.

Scholarship / Examples of networking skills in my career so far [3]

Networking skills for Chevening

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

My first networking in career happen on the very first week of me being a logistic pharmacist. It so happened at the time I registered for work was the exact time the hospital had run out of budget meaning purchasing drugs was out of the question. My only other option was to try to borrow what I required from nearby hospitals. Phone calls were made throughout the week, negotiating, bartering and referring to others that could help out also. From then on, I've frequently called upon this network in times when I've found myself stuck with a problem and they have seldom failed to respond. I am no longer working in logistic but I have maintained my relationship with people in this network.

My current role as a renal pharmacist has me working with dozens of medical practitioners ranging from those just starting their medical journey up to specialist and consultant. My time with them has help me increase my knowledge and also impart mine onto those that were still new. Over the 3 years I've work with the renal department, some of them stayed in nephrology whilst there were those that chose a different path; medical, pediatric, radiology etc. Although at the time they departed it seem saddening but their choice helped me extend my network further than nephrology. A personal experience of this network involved me calling upon one of the physician that had branch out into general medical field. My father had accidently been discharged from his regular follow up at the hospital medical outpatient department (MOPD) and was referred to a local clinic branch. Seeing that I needed to have a close monitoring of him, I asked for a favor from my physician colleague to re-admit him back and it was settled.

I am also participating in a national committee of renal pharmacist, each representing a state. In this committee, we discuss from time to time and organize conferences where we would often invite consultants from our respective hospital to share their knowledge and practice and thus extending our network in the process. We often help one another with problems arising in our hospital and refer to people that can help out.

Getting my Master degree in England would allow me to enrich my knowledge and allow me to cultivate best practices that I will encounter. Chevening scholarship would also allow me to network with the brightest minds and hopefully I in return would be able to provide mine with future scholars.

(416 words)