Scholarship / What it means to me? Essay on Leadership and influence - question for Chevening Fellowship [8]

Question- Chevening is looking for individuals who are leaders or influencers in their fields. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.

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

I realized the importance of leadership

As a person who went to boarding school from a small town to one of the biggest city in my state of Uttar Pradesh in India, at a tender age of 10 years, I realized the importance of leadership quite early in my life. Because for me leadership was all about taking initiative, leading the way , network, influence and motivate people and get them to work collectively for a common goal.

I explored my leadership tendencies first through sports. Cricket. It was a passion for me. I was determined to pursue my passion. Because of some circumstances, I didn't find a way into the cricket team of my class. I didn't lose hope. I gathered some prospective players from my class and started practicing with them, motivated them, convinced them and we made our separate team with . Through sheer hard work, strategy and team work, we started performing better than the original team in inter classes matches. I was in 7th standard then in 1993.

Another glaring example of leading from the front came when I found that the system of hostel mess was not efficient and qualitative and I participated in the election of mess manager and won. There I led the way for a through restructure of the weekly menu , added some special dishes and desert. Result was that everybody started liking mess food and utilized those extra hours looking for food outside the hostel, in their study and other activities. I was in 11th standard then in 1998.

Fast forward to 2018, I am leading BEEP (Building Energy Efficiency Program) launched by Ministry of Power, government of India for implementing energy efficiency measures in over 10,000 government buildings. My primary responsibility was to manage stakeholders , increase awareness, signing MoU with various ministries and departments. Leading a team of young professionals and motivating them for humongous task of implementing this program in time bound manner required a great deal of leadership and innovative initiatives on my part.

The biggest challenge in front of me, when I took charge , in implementing these measures was to collect the existing inventory data from such a large number of buildings in such a short time. And as those buildings were located across the length and breadth of India, it was a difficult task for the concerned regional teams. I then got an idea that why not develop an online platform where client itself will fill up the existing inventory data and based on that a draft proposal shall be generated online, eliminating the need for physical visit. It saved out time and resources and resulted in expedition of implementation of BEEP program.

Another leadership challenge came when I joined Raychem RPG company in 2017 as a sales head for their new product, Feeder Pillar, which is used for distribution of electricity by various state electricity board. My challenge was to get all regional teams on board and motivate them to promote this product to their existing clients. This was a difficult task as they were already occupied in sales of other product of company likes cable jointing and terminations. So what I did was to arrange a workshop at every regional office to convince them that this new product shall increase their profile and incentives and is not an extra work but should be seen as extra incentives. I also assured them that my team shall also give them leads for their products. This had a dominion effect and the number of leads from regional offices multiplied resulting in some very valuable orders from prestigious clients like Tata Power, Torrent Power and Indian Oil Corporation.

Scholarship / How undertaking this fellowship in the UK will benefit your career [3]

This essays is for a three month fellowship on "Leadership and Excellence" on the following question on STUDYING IN THE UK

Please outline why you are applying for this fellowship and explain how this relates to your current profession, specifically how undertaking this fellowship in the UK will benefit your career.

fellowship on "Leadership and Excellence"

This opportunity of fellowship for "Leadership and Excellence" couldn't have come at a better time in my professional life. At present I am working as Program Head with EESL(Energy Efficiency Services Limited), a public sector unit under ministry of power, government of India, and leading a government program named Building Energy Efficiency Program(BEEP), whose objective is to retrofit energy efficient LED Lights/Fan/ACs, in around 10,000 government buildings across India. This assignment requires me to conceptualize, plan, and implement energy efficiency measures at national level in various sectors. It requires a great deal of leadership , innovation, pursuit of excellence and engagement with various stakeholders ranging from central and state government ministries, departments to technology providers, manufacturers and installation agencies.

I genuinely believe that during this fellowship program I will come across great people in and outside campus and learn new perspective on leadership, team work, innovation and achieving excellence in large scale programs of national importance. I would have the opportunity to meet talented people having expertise in fields as diverse as finance, operations, international relations, public relations, policy making, corporate social responsibility, economies of scale and its social and climatic effect , and of course energy efficiency, which is my current field of work.

I have a strong feeling that this combination of academic knowledge on leadership and excellence and sharing of ideas on and off campus with people will help me excel in my current assignment and further my career in a positive manner. I envisage myself having great network of people from diverse sectors, as mentioned above, who I can consult officially for resolution of complex technological and operational challenges I may face in my current assignment.

As EESL, the company I work for, has a lot of other programs under its flag such as AgDSM(Agriculture demand side management), E-Vehicles, Solar Street Lights, Solar Study Lamp, MEEP(Municipality Energy Efficiency Program), SLNP(Street Light National Program), GEF-5(Global Environment Facility), Smart Meters, UJALA to name a few, there is a possibility that I may be assigned new responsibilities in the future when I can utilize the gains of this fellowship to the best interest for success of these projects. For example I would like to analyze the electrical vehicle market and its economics, dynamics and development as 1,35,000 electrical vehicles are already registered in UK. I would like to gather knowledge about charging infrastructure and customer response and how it can be replicated in India through on an off campus discussion. This valuable technical, operational and financial knowhow will enable me to present myself as suitable candidate to lead other path breaking and innovative initiatives Indian government in my company to further my career.

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