Chevening Leadership and Influence Question. Have a look, it would be very very nice of you.

Hello, everyone. I know, there are a lot of people posting the same about the same scholarship. Hope, you have time and energy to read mine!

I spent days writing and editing the essay and finally found this source.

Chevening is looking for individuals that will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.

I've never wanted to be a leader. I've always thought that was someone else's duty - know the way, go the way and show the way. I was the youngest boy among my friends and in my class too. I've always thought there was someone who was elder smarter and better than me. I was wrong.

I didn't change my mind instantly. In many projects I was involved in I saw that people didn't want to take any responsibility. No one took a risk and no one knows the best. So people followed the most ambition ones, who were not always right. I didn't like it and after all felt I was wasting my time. I even thought to leave my study and that time my father told me: "If you don't like the options you have, create your own one".

He inspired me. Instead of complaining, I started to change what I didn't like. Leader is a team, so in my university I started to spend more time with people who were out of the crowd and could think different. Leader equals to team's experience. So we started to share our ideas and tried to find a way, how to make them real. Leader is ready to change anything. So were we. We didn't like that we study Chinese language using texts and vocabulary, which were dead already. We wanted to study modern Chinese language with hot topics and have real discussion with real people. We decided to change the format of Chinese language courses we had in the university. Leader is a result, which is achieved by the team. And we spent weeks to convince university let us start talk clubs and movie nights to make Chinese students and Russian students talk and make them overcome language and cultural barriers. Did we know that our idea would change to Moscow Chinese Club and people from all around Moscow join us to meet and talk? No, we didn't. We wanted to study Chinese culture better. And this idea brought us to completely new way of studying. I believe, Chinese and Russian students, who started as talk clubs members will become trustful partners in future creating connections between Russia and China. That was the first step on my way to understand I can inspire people to be better, do better and achieve goals. That helped me to run international student association when I started to study in Chinese university and that helps me to run projects during my internship in Chinese company now.

I am still asking myself if I want to lead people. And after all, I believe, I want to inspire them to choose their own way.

Ruslan, your essay doesn't really respond to the question regarding your leadership qualifications. You are spending the essay discussing topics that do not shine a light upon your ability to be a leader. You speak instead, of how you know how to work with a team. That is not what the essay is asking you to discuss. The terms you use are also wrong. For example:

Leader is a team: The mistake in this term is that a team needs a leader. The leader is not a team. The correct term is "Team Leader" which means a person who put together a team and is leading his people in a particular direction. A leader can never be a team.

Leader is a result, which is achieved by the team. : No. This sentence does not make any sense. A leader achieves results with the help of his team. A leader can never be a result achieved by a team. The solution to the problem is achieved by the team through the guidance of their leader.

You are trying to portray yourself as a reluctant leader in the essay. However, your leadership role is not clear because you always speak in terms of team achievement rather than your leadership skills that led to the results. Remember, you have to explain how you embody the leadership requirements of the scholarship. I don't really see that reflected in this essay.

Thank you for the quick comment. May be I spent too much time editing right for wrong? xD I will check the meaning of the word "leader" one more time to understand it even better, as I understood, changing "team" for "me" wont help. However, I need to mention that I understood "leader" as a part of the team, who helps it to achieve team goals, not personal one, as without team there is no leader. How do you think if that idea worths for that chevening question?

My advice is, don't go for the textbook definition of what or who a leader is or should be. Define leadership on a personal basis because the idea behind any leadership varies on a case to case basis. Actually, a leader is someone who is able to inspire people, who think the same way as him, to develop and implement solutions to a given problem. Therefore, you are partially correct, there cannot be a leader if there is no team. However, if a leader does not have a vision that can inspire others, then he can never have a team to lead. Do you understand what I am trying to explain?

You have a pretty good topic regarding leadership in terms of how you discovered that you actually have the ability to lead a team. Therefore, what you should be doing is relating how your idea of leadership helped to inspire these people who, believing the same as you, decided that you should be their leader. Explain why they believed that you were the right person to lead the team. Then explain how you led them towards success. That is all you have to do within the essay. It doesn't need to be over analyzed or over edited. Keep the language simple. Make sure you reflect your leadership traits in the essay. That is all that is required of you.

Oh, thank you one more time. I have been sitting and re-reading your comment "rather than your leadership skills that led to the results".

You are right I am focusing too much on a team result without mentioning my participation. Your fresh view helped me a lot!