Scholarship / I had always found joy in contributing positively to other people's lives. Chevening Influence Essay [3]

Hello everyone. Please help me criticize my essay for me to know whether I correctly answer the question. Here is the question. Thank you.

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.

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

Chevening Leadership and Influence Essay

Since a young age, I had always found joy in contributing positively to other people's lives. That prompted me to always seek better ways to do so. Even though helping people really just needs a sincere intention and it does not always need a leadership and influencing skills, I found that those skills could lead to a much greater impact and thus, there were more people benefited from my actions.

My first influencing experience happened when I became Chief Secretary in a student committee organizing a local-brand bazaar. A tight budget made us had to set a high price for potential tenants and so all that were interested were relatively established businesses. It would help us financially, but I felt uncomfortable, as our initial goal for the event was to help businesses still struggling to gain market awareness and apparently, our price was unaffordable to them.

Expectedly, the whole team balked at my suggestion to reduce price and I understood their concern. Therefore, it was not enough to only remind them about our true vision but I also had to meet them halfway and gave them solution. Therefore, I proposed to set aside 10 out of 70 spaces for a Free Tenant Competition for students. I compromised and decided that if we could only help 10 striving businesses grow, it was still better than nothing. Making it a competition for students would help tremendously as marketing strategy to attract more visitors and it was also appealing for seeking sponsorships to help the budget. The whole team liked my idea and the event was a great success. I learned that one of the best ways to influence is to put forward everyone's best interest and seek for a win-win solution.

My leadership experience happened in XYZ, a non-profit organization that focuses on community development. I started there as Program Development staff and after several projects with outstanding achievements that I contributed in, I was trusted with a higher position, Board Secretary, which was the second most important position in that organization.

There was a project of a school initiation in a village that was still in its beginning stage and it desperately needed more funding. There was no solution in sight and the project leader was ready to give up. However, I felt responsible towards the project's team as they had worked hard for it and also towards the villagers. Therefore, even though I was Board Secretary, I took over the responsibility of funding. I made a proposal to the government and I got a grant of 40 million rupiahs and the problem was solved. I managed to boost the team's morale and made a contribution to the villager's life by continuing the project.

At that time, I did what I think a leader should do for her team and through opportunities provided by Chevening Scholarship, in the future, I hope to create even greater positive impact to the people around me.