Chevening Essay - Question one - Leadership

Chevening Essay - Question one - Leadership

thanks for reviewing my answer for the first question . Nada

In my third year of college I got accepted as Public relations head for ENSAN "Human being in Arabic", which is a new established NGO that cares about orphans. As a PR team, we had to deal with several problems facing ENSAN.

One of these problems was the lack of funding for any event or campaign. Consequently, I discussed the state clearly with my team and we started finding alternative ways for funding. Subsequently, this resulted in several suggestions which we started working on for one week to measure the applicability of performing them on ground. Eventually, we picked two ways that we will work on in parallel: selling handmade products done by the children and In-kind donations. We presented those ways to the upper board and got the approval to execute selling handmade products.

During execution; we faced a problem regarding some paper works that caused us to lose the place where the event will be held. As a result, we had to find a different place with the resources we had. I had the idea of going towards social clubs as they required the minimum paper works in addition to low cost. Fortunately, one of my team members was a member in a nearby club, so we went to the administration office and asked for the applicability to set up this event. The staff welcomed us and agreed to rent us a table for free. However, when me and my team mate went to inform the upper board with this news, we faced a great rejection to the idea as no one ever held events in such place. I tried to show them that the diversity of people and the difference of the place will help us in spreading among different generations and strata of society with different backgrounds. Yet they had a little doubt, therefore my team mate suggested to do a small campaign to introduce "ENSAN" for the club members so that we can measure the impact of performing such big event in a new place. They agreed on such suggestion and the campaign was done within a week. Luckily, the club's visitors welcomed us warmly and applause the idea we are adopting. Appropriately, because of our effort, we held the event as we planned and raised a good amount of funding for the NGO.

This experience taught me how to act as a leader and how can I get the best out of my team even during bad days. We were a small team out of 4 yet we done a noticeable impact in ENSAN.

Nada, this essay is too unimpressive for a Chevening leadership and influencing essay. It is not very appropriate for you to be presenting such an academic leadership and influencing skill when you are applying for a scholarship that requires its sponsored students to be of the highest professional ranking and standard possible within their field of expertise / work. This essay will not do. It will not be able to stand up to comparisons with other candidates who have worked for notable companies, hold significant titles of leadership in their firm, and have notable influencing activities that support their leadership styles on a national or international scale.

My advice to you is this, if you are currently working and you are working in a position of note or responsibility within the company, use a professional situation to illustrate your leadership and ability skills. If you are merely a rank and file employee who only fulfills the orders or instructions as provided to you by the actual leader, then don't try to make your being a gopher in the office sound like you are a supervisor. Try to find another avenue of leadership that you can use instead.

If you cannot use a professional experience, then use a community service experience where you again, actually led and influenced a team. The same rules apply for this sort of presentation as well. If you were only a member who did not do something to emerge as a leader and influencer, then that won't count either as relevant leadership and influencing skills in this essay.

The scholarship program is looking for emerging leaders in the professional community of each country. That is why your essay will not be able to compare when held up to scrutiny against other far more experienced and notable applicants. This is academic in setting, where you may have led, but the final decisions came from other people. The authorities of the university. There is no pro and con to your decision making process in an academic setting and even if there were, the gamble you made on the decision does not have far reaching benefits or consequences. Hence it is an unacceptable example of leadership and influencing.