Chevening Scholarship: LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCING SKILLS FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

Hello guys... this is my first draft for the Leadership and Influence essay. Have i reached the prompt assessment?

Chevening is looking for individuals who 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.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCING SKILLS FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

"I grew up in a humble family and lost my father when I was 13. I had to start working at a young age to help my mother raise my two siblings. Motivated to help my family, I matured and developed a positive mental attitude and a strong work ethic which has stayed with me into adulthood. Now, I can clearly see the benefits of my hard work.

Over the course of my life, I have developed my own strategies to succeed. It makes me particularly proud that I have found new ways to push myself further when facing significant setbacks. Through hard work and learning from my failures and my successes, I have worked my way up into a position of leadership in my chosen career as a conservation biologist.

I first developed a passion for working with animals at the São Paulo Zoo where I participated in several conservation projects for endangered species. They had very complex protocols for animal welfare, behavioral enhancement and wildlife conservation based on many decades of research. I used this wealth of experience and knowledge to develop various abilities for that type of work and to enhance my ability to work within a team.

My next role was at Project Asas Vila Verde (a wild animal release centre). Over the course of five years, I worked from the position of intern up to my current position as head biologist in my department. I am responsible for coordinating and advising several teams, all the way from the animal keepers to the directors.

Using my previous experience, I identified many areas of potential development and proposed significant changes in animal care that later improved our results significantly. I used these positive results to show the team that good work in this field is often an incentive in itself.

One of the biggest changes I implemented on the project was recruiting volunteers from local community to work with alongside us. By contacting the community leaders, school principals, local secretaries and other authorities, I organized the Vila Verde Wildlife Monitoring Group, which has now more than 40 volunteers. I introduced them to our monitoring strategies and taught them how to recognise and identify released birds and how to record useful data to enhance our interpretation of the results. This local awareness of our work had added the advantage of getting the community on board.

I am good at identifying individual strengths and personality and then being able to motivate them within a team environment to unite our strengths to further nature conservation.

I have shown throughout my career that I am able to take on knowledge from both written sources and personal experiences. As leader, I must continue to improve and learn from my experiences and future education to carry on applying them and improving my team at work. By studying in the UK, it is my hope to move forward to achieve my goal to work within some of the important conservation programs in Brazil."

What do you think?

Rodrigo, only paragraphs 3-6 can be used for this essay. That is the only part where you implied a degree of leadership in a project and an ability to influence people through your own efforts and through leading by example. That is the most inspirational part of your essay so that should be the center of the essay. Open the revised version with paragraph 3 and lead it all the way into the current paragraph 6. From that point, work on a more viable conclusion that relates to the statement in the last paragraph where you say, "As a leader, I must continue..." The other portions that tell the reviewer about your leadership skills should not be in the essay. You need to show your leadership and influencing skills, not describe them. As the prompt instructs: use clear examples of your leadership and influencing skills to support your answer. Therefore, you must show instead of tell. If you wish to reiterate your leadership and influencing traits in the essay, then use your descriptions as part of the narrative instead of making those stand alone statements. These adjustments should take your essay into its most usable format for the application.