I'm applying for Chevening for the first time and came to know about this school just a few days ago

Hi I am applying for Chevening for the first time and unfortunately I have came to know about chevening just a few days ago. In limited time I have structured my essay Leadership & Influence please find below, kindly evaluate and respond back...I will be grateful

Innovation, responsibility and motivation are the guiding principles of leadership, erected upon these principles stand my development as a professional and human being. I firmly believe that leadership is not a born trait and it is not granted by knowledge contained in books but rather developed only by sheer hard work & events that evolve ordinary person into a leader who bring ideas to reality.

I have always defined leadership as actions performed not just by mere ideas centering inside someone's brain, this interpretation has helped in achieving my goals & always made me stand out among my peers throughout my academics & professional work. I was always trusted to lead many projects and assignments which involves leading teams of different personal capability into one forum, presenting different business ideas, managing brainstorming sessions, developing new concepts and bringing improvement in processes related to Engineering and business during my undergraduate studies and in one of these projects where our team won inter departmental competition for best prototype manufacturing idea.

All this has helped me three years ago when I had joined one of the country's largest beverage manufacturing company as an Operations Engineer. Biggest challenge at the time was that company was facing difficulties to evolve with the growing business & changing market trends specially in areas of Quality, Safety, customer satisfaction and operational excellence. Absence of any Safety program within the organization was also a challenge at that time important to mention that two consecutive fire incidents had resulted in organization's reputation at stake within the business community. As part of middle management in operations department I had to overlook millions of dollars investment in equipment, infrastructure, labor and managing HSE in my area. This was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate my leadership abilities I had equipped myself in academics & co-curricular activities.

First step that I had taken were clear SOP development & its compliance for every operational activity within the department. My motto was "No compromise on Safety and Quality" and accountability was the main pillar of this structure where every person was responsible for his actions apart from his designation in case of non-compliance. Secondly I started organizing training sessions for my team developing their capabilities in operational activities always keep in mind the main objectives of operational excellence were Safety and Quality. Third I was also incharge of audit team for implementation of OHSAS 18000 & Food Safety FSSC 22000 systems, we conducted several audits in all operational divisions and supported relevant teams in improving those sections. All these untiring efforts paid off in less than two years resulted in transforming our plants into world class facility with winning more than ten global awards in Quality & no major accidents in last three years with zero fire incident.

With all these achievements I am still striving for facing new challenges & contribute in continuously improving our systems because I believe that "Sky is not the limit"

Hi Suleman,

In my opinion, your essay has quite good leadership examples.

In order to turn your essay more direct to the point, I would suggest you remove your first paragraph. However, you could use the traits listed to feature your actions as leader. Your fourth paragraph, for example, could be strengthened by doing this. Also, in the same paragraph, if you would add the difficulties that you overcame and how you did, it would enrich the essay even more.

Moreover, I would suggest you summarize the third paragraph. It seems to me that has more explanations than the needed, which could deviate the reader attention.

I hope I have helped.