Chevening Scholarship is a great opportunity for me to enhance my leadership skills

Leadership and influence essay

Hello. This is my essay regarding leadership and influence for chevening scholarship. I would appreciate it if you could comment on it. Thanks in advance.

When I started university in 2013, I had no idea how far I would go with those studies. Our university lacked in a few facilities that were already available to many others. For example, practice was missing in some important core units and they were thought theoretically only. There was the point where I and a few other classmates as a team decided to establish the association of civil engineering under supervision of the chairperson at the time. At first, the students were not so keen on this program and this made us to come up with a solution. We decided to create leaflets representing the advantages of this program which included the impact and efficiency of the studies on real world construction industry. Consequently, the students were showing interest in the program and the number of attendances in workshops increased. This was a big step towards further activities engaging students and we were praised by our chairperson and head of department.

During my studies at university, I first started my career as an intern in my brother's construction company. Well, I had the advantage to gain all the necessary experience and information to become familiar with real world construction as quick as possible. My brother himself has always been an inspiration for me in leadership skills and making me self-confident. After employment in two different companies as a superintendent, I consider myself a well-experienced person in managing the construction scheme and labor force.

My description of being a good leader mostly include taking reasonable risks and being competent at what you are required to do. With these two I've been able to lead the workers and other engineers efficiently with respect to my employer demands. For example in Iran, workers and sometimes engineers do not work efficiently as they should do and there is no clause or paragraph in the contract regarding the punishment of such things. Here comes the decision-making skills and risk assessment, meaning that you must neither take hard on them nor be unresponsive and indifferent, otherwise the outcome would not be desired. So as a leader I have to make important decisions in order to achieve my employer's requirements.

Chevening Scholarship is a great opportunity for me to enhance my leadership skills and familiarize myself with international regulations regarding managing in my field.

Mehdi, your college leadership and influencing experience is not valid. You are using "we" rather than "I" in that discussion which means you are proving that you can work with a team, but not that you are capable of leading and influencing a team or potential participants. You can only use that reference if you are capable of telling the reviewer what your position was, your duties as a leader, and how you applied influencing or inspirational skills in gaining the cooperation of the team mates or drafting new members to the club.

As for your professional experience, the fact that you worked for your brother should have allowed you to fully reach your leadership and influencing potential. However, I do not read about any real leadership and influencing experiences during this time. You need to refocus the essay with regards to your professional aspect. The requirements are the same as the academic one except, you need to show a heightened sense of both leadership and influencing skills this time.

Try to write about more relevant leadership and influencing experiences. Don't use this current presentation. It is not going to be considered competitive enough during the screening process.

Thank you very much Holt. I'll consider to focus more on specifics.