Scholarship / "University-hood" - Leadership & Influence Essay for Chevening [2]

Hello I'm planning to apply for Chevening Scholarship. I would appreciate any feedback and hope to get your feedback as soon as possible, Thanks

I know, right now the total word of essay is more than the requirement but i'll cut that word according to given suggestion, so thats why need your help.

Leadership sharpened through experience

Every individual has their own leadership potential. However, I believe that leadership needs to be sharpened through experience. In my opinion, a real leader has to face challenges and solve them to be called a leader. From many examples of leading in my life, I would like to write a few of them.

Starting from, when I got admission for my graduate studies in the university, I always keen to become the leader of my class in university with objective of developing the fellow performance and tried to improve their confidence by bring them in front, therefore, I started the media society in my university department and made a team of 20 students from different departments in start, and then arranged various events in my campus such as student's orientation, competition, concert, etc. for my juniors. As a result, this step influences them a lot and my department fellows took part in several events arranged in other universities of Pakistan and won different prizes. Similarly, under the purpose of doing something new for others, I tried to register my campus student-chapter separately with "Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) United kingdom" but unfortunately because of already main campus chapter registration, I was not able to register my sub-campus separately. Thus for the completion of this aim, I took part in one "Wooden scaled bridge design competition" as a team leader of 5 candidates team, arranged by the main university-campus ICE-student chapter. I won 2nd prize all over Pakistan among 38 teams. By that performance, the main campus student-chapter president introduced me as the president of my own sub-campus ICE student-chapter. It was the best opportunity for me to show and use my leadership and influencing skills. I had to manage the team and solve every challenge of my juniors during numerous phases or activities. The success of my team and juniors, influence to change the mindset of all students of the different department and my mentors as well. Apart from that, furthermore, due to these skills, my teachers select me always as a team leader in several academic tasks such as in semester projects and my Bachelor final year project. I could lead my group by using a democratic leadership style. We worked together with our best with compromising between us. My group was awarded a special prize in the final year project by the university project committee.

After completing University-hood, my first professional job started as a Trainee Engineer in "Habib Rafiq Construction Company". I was responsible for leading and management of the team to conduct the site activities and monitor the team performance and activities progress during construction of a five-story building in Power plant. Whereas it was my first job, it was the best opportunity for me to show and use my leadership and influencing skills that I gained from my academic years. During the construction phase I face a lot of challenges, for example sometimes according to transportation problems the construction materials cannot deliver on time in the site, I had to influence and manage the team to do another activity until reaching the materials. As I could manage the team and solve every challenge during the construction phase, the project was progressing as its timetable. In the middle of the project progress, I was selected directly as an "Assistant Civil Engineer" of the project to manage a team of junior engineers, supervisors, workers, and technicians. It was another opportunity for me to show my leadership and influence skills and get new experiences from managing a team of different employees. I influenced other professional engineers to work hard with diligently and give them a real base example of mine that hard work pays off.

To sum up, being a great leader and influencer is not an instant process. For that matter, I am applying for this scholarship. By combination my existing knowledge and practical maneuver with the experience, I firmly assure I will help support not merely my junior and senior civil engineer practitioners but also to my nation-building process as a civil engineer professional. I would like to develop myself with further education and organizational experiences to be a better leader for the bigger community in the future.