Communication is a key element of leadership - Chevening essay

Hello, I would like to have a comment from anyone before submission. Please let me know any comments, it will be helpful.

LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE QUESTION

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)

It is generally thought that the attribute of leadership cannot be taught but to achieve the goal in any field requires time for self-development and exposure to various experiences. There is also a difference in emphasis in ### culture from the European model. ### has some degree of reverence of age over experience and elevates consensus building rather directive leadership. To develop as a leader in ### often requires patience and endurance rather than driving ambition which can be a little bit of a drawback. However, both at school and compulsory military services I used to play leadership roles. For instance, I was selected as squad leader in military transportation unit for more than a year.

After the army, my undergraduate experience at ### was a period of reflection and I just tried to gain much better knowledge and understanding about how to adapt to a new and foreign environment. This did help me in taking leading positions on projects for our company in the international market place. I have taken lead positions in multi-million dollar projects in Peru, Chile, Poland and Philippines. I was fortunate enough to receive outstanding employee of the year award in 2011. I was also awarded a certificate for being part of successful team bidding for an IPP project in Peru. It was the first construction project by ### construction company in Peru.

This year, my team had a commercial issue to resolve on the close out of that project and I was part of the team which resolved the dispute following a Mediation in London. I was not the leader of our team but I was the only fluent English speaker and it was a task to try to "lead" the senior managers from behind. We spent three days of intensive negotiations with a South African Queen's Counsel, many English lawyers, American suppliers and Peruvian and Israeli clients. I had to think of the bigger picture and micromanage because of the large sums involved. The dispute was finally settled at CEO level in private meetings in ### where I had to brief and stand behind our CEO through the whole process.

This valuable experience gave me the chances to interact with different types of leaders and to appreciate that communication is a key element of leadership. I think that I have the commitment to equip myself with these important skills myself. At this stage of my career I am not the final decision maker but I am confident, and believe that Chevening will elevate my leadership skills and give me the tools to be a future leader.

I'm also a Chevening applicant so maybe i'm not the best to comment but i'll give you my comments hoping that it might be beneficial. I think that you didn't prove your rule as a leader. Also,i didn't notice any influential rule. I think you need to emphasis on a certain case to show your leadership and influential abilities.Talk about your team,how did you help them as a leader,how did you motivate them,etc.I think you can do better.

My comment, I would give more details in my example of leadership. Also you should enphasize on what was you "influencer" role played.

I found this essay to be very confusing. Here is what you can do to make it better. You must remove the references to the military service, your undergraduate activities, and your services overseas. Try to clarify what job you took on after your army and college experience. First, you have to tell us what company you worked for and in what capacity. We need to understand what kind of work you did that took you all over the world and even allowed you to assist in such an important negotiation. Then, you need to look at the situation from an outsider's point of view. In what aspect do you think you really influenced the important people whom you were tasked to assist? Please relate that story in detail so that the reviewer can better understand why you were "leading from behind". A more concentrated effort to clearly present your leadership and influencing story is necessary for the proper development of this paper. You still have a few days before the deadline, you can still make the necessary changes to make it the best essay for your application.

I think you can tell more stories about what you did when you were a squad leader and also when you were doing the multi-dollar project. If I read this essay briefly it seemed to be more like a reference letter rather than your personal essay describing about who you are, how you do things, whats inside your thoughts and more. Good luck!