Scholarship / Chevening Essay Leadership & Influence - Learning leadership without status [3]

"Knowing leadership through position and learning it without status."

Leadership is a fundamental value which is a must to have, in order to improve life. I recognized the urgency of leadership when I challenged myself to take responsibilities for some committees at university. The positions did not guarantee a comprehensive understanding of leadership. Indeed, my leadership skill was forged significantly during working as a pharmacist without any subordinates. As long as I can be a role model and encourage others to put patients as the first priority.

In 2014, as technology and health-based science student, I realize the importance of preventive and promotive services to ensure the quality of people's lives. While students focused on academics and put aside their health and lifestyle, some friends and I initiated an event on campus to accommodate both health services. Although the enthusiasm of university students to get involved was quite immense, the diversity of scientific backgrounds influenced their understanding of the goals to be achieved. Inconsequent, some tasks couldn't be completed. Fortunately, these obstacles could be handled by lending a hand and supports from other team members. The gap forced me to make more efforts to motivate them as the foundation and arrange several credible and influential people in each division. Even though the participants gave good responses, I thought that the effectiveness of the committee was still lacking. From this experience, I found out that one of the important points of leadership is inspiration and communication. In addition to the focus on the vision, the team could give their best performance.

For me, my second year working full-time as a XXX Officer in 2019 is a challenging phase. Since the beginning of the year, I was in charge of the XXX process for a new sophisticated XXX machine. Although previously I was not familiar with the system and the time duration was quite short, I feel challenged. Lack of experience of that machine required me to learn a lot, even discussing with some technicians. Deviations of the result were common things during implementation, but the number was relatively high due to some errors in the machine. My deviation reports often got refusals from technicians, particularly for quality relevant issues, considering the risk of the delayed project. So do the external technicians. Because of the limited time, they against some internal procedures. I did want to finish the project quickly, but zero defect is my priority. Despite overwhelming, I persevere to convince the product's risk for patients every time in friendly ways. Even though they underestimated me in the beginning, I could see some respects after being persistence to encourage them about my concern. Also, they even identified any defects or deviations occurred and actively discussed for a better solution.

All in all, leadership doesn't depend on position but every challenging matter exactly taught me to improve and determine how to inspire and influence others as a XXX in the future.

Scholarship / Chevening Essay Networking - Meaningless Intelligence [4]

"An outstanding intelligence without networks will be meaningless."

Networking is not something that is emphasized during my education, but I believe that it's necessary, especially to identify any problems in society. Also, it is a channel for implementing my knowledge. A good and appropriate network will be able to guarantee the benefit of knowledge and solutions created. Although in recent years social media has grown rapidly, I have tended to develop professional networks offline considering its legibility.

In 2018, a few months after occupying a new position in a different department, I was appointed as a XXX, who was responsible as a representative for the XXX implementation program in my department. As a XXX, I was required to be able to socialize any latest information regarding XXX and ensure there were no deviations related to XXX in my department. Even though it has been brought as a mandatory knowledge for every personnel since 2015, it reaped pros and cons. My position as a new employee and XXX were also into some internal cons. Fortunately, having good relations with some colleagues across departments was beneficial to understand the updated complex regulation. Therefore, I could also identify some deviations early on. I also took a personal approach by having lunch together with my teammate and discussing our interest to speed up the engagement. Through a closer relationship, they were more open to my input for better improvements. Also, some personnel who were involved in deviations could get leniency due to immediate action that we defined as the solution.

In 2019, as a XXX Officer, I often encountered deviations under XXX, including the operational qualification phase of the XXX. It was my responsibility to identify and report any deviations to ensure the qualification of the system before release. At that time, I found that the spray speed didn't meet the requirement. Because of the tight schedule, the deviation report should be followed up on the same day, even after working hours. The solution should be proposed by the system experts, but it had been time off from work stop in XXX─the origin of the supplier. With all due respect, I contacted the manager of the supplier. Although we had never had chat, we were involved in some virtual meetings several times. I was grateful for my previous initiatives to be involved in every system related meeting with either internal or external parties. After a brief explanation, the vendor sent an official reply via email immediately so the test could be completed that day.

If I am selected as Chevening awardee, I will be able to join Chevening communities to develop my network with fellow international students in the UK. Also, I will be able to meet and collaborate with international industrial pharmacists, the UK in particular, to overcome XXX. Although I prefer offline interaction more, I believe that I still could maintain the relationship I build through social media for my networking in the future.