It's been weeks since the Chevening application closing. I have put my best efforts into making these essays and successfully submitted it. I know this is far from perfect. I would be really appreciated if you could give feedback on my essay.
LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE
Leading is looking ahead possibilities while managing is looking after what is on our hands. I believe effective leaders are those who practise both strong leadership and management skills. Additionally, they are capable of not only persuading people but also managing them effectively in order to ensure success in achieving goals. That thought is a reflection of my personal experiences when managing various international projects at the International Office of Universitas Muhammadiyah Sukabumi (IO UMMI) for more than three years.
In 2018, in order to scale up the internationalisation of the university, I challenged myself to initiate an international art collaboration event involving artists from different countries. I shared my idea with people within my network. I managed to persuade a stage director, six artists, two scholars, and three communities from Sukabumi, Netherlands, and Malaysia to work together voluntarily. We named the project 'International Collaboration: Art Performances for Charity', which derived from the objective to raise funds for educational development at Padaasih, a village in Sukabumi with low educational aspiration level. However, I had only two-week preparation because the foreign artists were not going to stay for long in Sukabumi. Also, I had difficulties in balancing between performance practices and production meetings due to the lack of feasible direct meeting schedules. I resolved these challenges by integrating my knowledge in computer technology and my management skills. I encouraged the team to use Trello (a free online project management app) and WhatsApp to maximise the coordination. On Trello, one could write notes and see what was written by the others as well. It enabled me to assign tasks and write notes for the team individually and keep track of the progress. As for the team, everyone could write reports and tell what was being worked on, who was working on what, and what was to do directly on their mobile or other devices. To speed up the decision-making process, I followed up through WhatsApp chat, call, and video call. As a result, I could maximise the limited scheduled meetings we had for performance practices and maintain good coordination among the team seamlessly. Finally, in April 2018, we successfully held the event and raised IDR 2,300,000 (GBP 120). It was then transferred to the managers of Alam Insan Cerdikia Kindergarten as they have been tackling educational issues at Padaasih by providing free kindergarten and library since 2017.
This is an example of how I have practised effective leadership by integrating both my leadership and management skills. I was not only able to successfully scale up the internationalisation of UMMI, but also contributed to the internationalisation of Sukabumi and delivered positive impacts on society at the same time. In the future, I wish to be an expert in international project management and contribute more to the internationalisation of Sukabumi. I believe that Chevening is a great opportunity to further improve my leadership, management, and influencing skills in order to realise it.
One at a timeOverall, the writing quality was good. However, in terms of leadership and management, you focused too much on management over leadership. You had a lot of excellent detail about how you coordinated the different teams to accomplish various tasks, but you skipped over how you persuaded them to work together at the start. You also said that "leading is looking ahead possibilities", but you did not show clearly how you personally did that with these foreign artists. You need to add more details about your persuasion/inspiration skills.
Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 The Chevening Scholarship asks the students to write a Leadership and Influencing essay. It does not ask the student to write a management and networking essay. Which is what you produced in this essay. As such, you have not provided the appropriate information for the essay and may find it difficult to progress to the next line of considerations. You define leadership as you see it on a personal note, which is good but not really required. The reviewer looks more at how you embody leadership and influencing traits within the workplace, through proper work representation, rather than the personal or textbook definition of leadership and influencing.
Always remember, being a good manager does not translate into being a good leader. Networking cannot be translated into influencing. These are the reasons why the Chevening requires specific essay presentations based on their required prompts. Failure to comply with the content requirement will definitely mean a weak or irrelevant essay and the possibility of not making it to the next round of considerations.
