AlphaA101
Jul 19, 2025
Scholarship / Chevening - Engineer, a draft about Leadership and Influence Essay [3]
Chevening is looking for individuals who will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.
I am well aware that this is more than 500 words. I just need to know what parts I should remove from this initial draft and what can I do better
Leadership. A skill that I was introduced to during my college and university-level education and which continued developing in my professional career. A string of extra-curricular activities, that started off in my college from 2017 to 2019, where I held different positions such as the Assistant Director and then the Director at our Science Olympiad, 'X', managing over 450 participants and leading a team of 5 people in my domain for two consecutive years. Despite being labelled as STEM, I observed how the Olympiad was focusing mostly on Science and ignoring other areas of STEM. I was able to introduce a module in the event that focused on STEM overall. My module introduced decrypting messages, proving mathematical equations and debating about astrological opinions. Another observation I made during my college-level education was a lack of interest in the development of board games despite students eager to play them. Seeing that, I put forth a proposal to my higher management and founded the (Society Name) where individuals could develop their interest in games such as scrabble and chess. As someone who has been playing these games since childhood, I wanted the society to not only aimed to make students gain an interest in these board games but to improve their cognitive skills too and that was my pitch to my management as well. With the approval, I got an overwhelming response of nearly 35 students joining into the society. I developed training sessions, and introduced friendly competitions within the society. Additionally, I developed a team which represented our college and participated in different inter-college events. My society's chess team was recognized in many inter-college events as they secured positions, which highlighted the significance of my work.
During my undergraduate studies at (University Name), I was part of the university's debating society, (Society Name), first as only a team member and getting promoted as Team Lead - Creativity the next year. As Team Lead in the Creativity domain, my focus revolved around creating topics that can be debated upon in events organized by the university and make sure the entire event is looking presentable for the audience. I realized the dullness that was previously overlooked in creativity in the debating environment as well as the topic. When choosing the topics to debate, I used to emphasize my team to dwell into present issues around the country. And in terms of the ambiance of debating, I looked for ways that caught people's attention like putting up controversial slogans, decorating the debating hall and making it presentable. My focus and aim, which I shared with my team too, was too create an immersive environment for any stranger, regardless of them being interested in debating or not.
Starting my professional journey in the energy industry of (Country name) as (Profession) at (Company Name) at October 2023, I proposed the idea of introducing and implementing the use of operational manuals for the technical activities that the team does on a monthly and semi-annually basis. I emphasized to my supervisors that the manuals will be beneficial for the team as they will be able to study, implement and avoid any mistakes that previously occurred. After all, knowledge is limitless. My supervisors supported me on this. I listed our tasks and their performance schedule, broke them down in different sections and with the help of our technical manuals and contracts, I was able to draft operational manuals for equipment inspections as well as mandatory monthly activities that we did at our work place. The work was approved, and the manuals are still consulted to till this day. As I switched roles and moved to (Company Name) in April 2025 as a (Profession), one of the first encounters where I had to demonstrate my ability to lead was when our power plant had observed back-to-back generation failure scenarios. As the only engineer representative of the client team at the time, I made sure to handle the situation well in accordance to our contractual agreements and made sure we do not take any wrong steps that may damage our facility equipment. Apart from the technical side, I am now overseeing the commercial aspects as well which includes negotiations and procurement of materials. Entrusted by my Project Director, I focus upon managing the annual budget of our facility and dealing with vendor negotiations and meetings for any projects that are currently occurring or will occur.
To conclude, I believe my current leadership and influencing skills have allowed me to demonstrate my decision-making authority, logic and trust on my team. I believe it is my authenticity in my role as a leader that has always provided fruitful results with the teams I have led over the years. I believe Chevening will help me gain exposure to new ways I can define myself as a better leader in my team, which would also be beneficial in my own personal growth as well.
Chevening is looking for individuals who will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.
I am well aware that this is more than 500 words. I just need to know what parts I should remove from this initial draft and what can I do better
Leadership. A skill that I was introduced to during my college and university-level education and which continued developing in my professional career. A string of extra-curricular activities, that started off in my college from 2017 to 2019, where I held different positions such as the Assistant Director and then the Director at our Science Olympiad, 'X', managing over 450 participants and leading a team of 5 people in my domain for two consecutive years. Despite being labelled as STEM, I observed how the Olympiad was focusing mostly on Science and ignoring other areas of STEM. I was able to introduce a module in the event that focused on STEM overall. My module introduced decrypting messages, proving mathematical equations and debating about astrological opinions. Another observation I made during my college-level education was a lack of interest in the development of board games despite students eager to play them. Seeing that, I put forth a proposal to my higher management and founded the (Society Name) where individuals could develop their interest in games such as scrabble and chess. As someone who has been playing these games since childhood, I wanted the society to not only aimed to make students gain an interest in these board games but to improve their cognitive skills too and that was my pitch to my management as well. With the approval, I got an overwhelming response of nearly 35 students joining into the society. I developed training sessions, and introduced friendly competitions within the society. Additionally, I developed a team which represented our college and participated in different inter-college events. My society's chess team was recognized in many inter-college events as they secured positions, which highlighted the significance of my work.
During my undergraduate studies at (University Name), I was part of the university's debating society, (Society Name), first as only a team member and getting promoted as Team Lead - Creativity the next year. As Team Lead in the Creativity domain, my focus revolved around creating topics that can be debated upon in events organized by the university and make sure the entire event is looking presentable for the audience. I realized the dullness that was previously overlooked in creativity in the debating environment as well as the topic. When choosing the topics to debate, I used to emphasize my team to dwell into present issues around the country. And in terms of the ambiance of debating, I looked for ways that caught people's attention like putting up controversial slogans, decorating the debating hall and making it presentable. My focus and aim, which I shared with my team too, was too create an immersive environment for any stranger, regardless of them being interested in debating or not.
Starting my professional journey in the energy industry of (Country name) as (Profession) at (Company Name) at October 2023, I proposed the idea of introducing and implementing the use of operational manuals for the technical activities that the team does on a monthly and semi-annually basis. I emphasized to my supervisors that the manuals will be beneficial for the team as they will be able to study, implement and avoid any mistakes that previously occurred. After all, knowledge is limitless. My supervisors supported me on this. I listed our tasks and their performance schedule, broke them down in different sections and with the help of our technical manuals and contracts, I was able to draft operational manuals for equipment inspections as well as mandatory monthly activities that we did at our work place. The work was approved, and the manuals are still consulted to till this day. As I switched roles and moved to (Company Name) in April 2025 as a (Profession), one of the first encounters where I had to demonstrate my ability to lead was when our power plant had observed back-to-back generation failure scenarios. As the only engineer representative of the client team at the time, I made sure to handle the situation well in accordance to our contractual agreements and made sure we do not take any wrong steps that may damage our facility equipment. Apart from the technical side, I am now overseeing the commercial aspects as well which includes negotiations and procurement of materials. Entrusted by my Project Director, I focus upon managing the annual budget of our facility and dealing with vendor negotiations and meetings for any projects that are currently occurring or will occur.
To conclude, I believe my current leadership and influencing skills have allowed me to demonstrate my decision-making authority, logic and trust on my team. I believe it is my authenticity in my role as a leader that has always provided fruitful results with the teams I have led over the years. I believe Chevening will help me gain exposure to new ways I can define myself as a better leader in my team, which would also be beneficial in my own personal growth as well.
