Chevening Application - Leadership - Ebola Response

The determination to achieve has always made me see problems as challenges that need to be solved and not avoided. In my quest to achieve, people see a role model and get courage to emulate the same. I have been a leader from a young age when I was chosen to be a prefect at the age of 10, a head girl both in primary and secondary school, class representative both at bachelors and graduate level and team leader, coordinator and manager in my profession.

The best moment that exhibited my leadership and influencing skills was during the 2014 Ebola Outbreak when I was working for the International rescue committee (IRC) in Liberia Lofa County. The reaction of most expatriates was to evacuate but I reacted to the contrary. I saw an opportunity to be part of history and make a mark in my career. When the most deadly phase of the outbreak came in June 2014, there was no senior public health or medical personnel at the IRC's national office and the country director was out of the country on business. Despite being a junior officer at that time, I quickly stepped up to the occasion and volunteered to attend the national Ebola response task force meeting to ensure that we were part of the response. From the report I wrote from that meeting, funds were availed from the regional office to kick start our response activities. My decision to stay in Liberia in the face of the outbreak challenged the national staff that I was working with to join hands in the fight against Ebola at a time when they were considering leave of absence. I was promoted to be the Health programmes manager for the IRC in Lofa County where the organization was the biggest partner to the Ministry of Health implementing the results based financing project in 42 out of 59 health facilities and more than 96 villages.

I leveraged on my team's potential and made them leaders in their areas of expertise. Each member of my team became the organization's representative in the different Ebola response sub-task forces as well as ensuring that the respective facilities they supervised were fully functional and equipped to serve people even in the wake of the outbreak. Through these efforts and in partnership with other partners, Lofa was the first county to eradicate Ebola and became a model for Ebola response in the county and other IRC offices in West Africa. From this experience I realized that good leadership means motivating, inspiring and empowering everyone around you to take responsibility and use the best of their skills to achieve a common goal. I would like to embed these 3 tenants of leadership in my career to influence better public health interventions and policies through use of evidence to motivate and inspire managers to try new interventions and be innovative; empower policy maker to make healthy and effective policies and empower the communities to take control of the social determinants of their health.

Dear Line,

You have a very interesting story telling instincts and i do know you are a leader with a proven track record.

The Ebola Scenario was great as an example but you can emphasize more on how your personal influencing skills helped more than the minute you wrote.

@Holt can you please review my essay. thanks

Your essay can do without the first paragraph. These early impressions of your leadership are not really effective in delivering the idea that you would go on to become an effective leader and influencer in your field. I suggest that you just move directly to the Ebola story since that is where your leadership and influencing mettle was truly tested. By the way, your leadership skills were quite notable, but short on the influencing part. Any chance you can insert something that exemplifies your ability to inspire in the face of danger and lack of upper management leadership? I bet you can do it. Aside from those suggestions, the rest of the essay is alright in my opinion.

@Holt
thank you. I will remove the first paragraph and try to put something to bring out my influencing skills