Really need help with my essay >.<"
Does "clear examples" means I have to tell a specific story/experience?
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)
the success of a leadership
For centuries people have been made to believe that a woman cannot be a great leader. In our society, people still think women are inferior to men in almost every aspect of life, let alone in leadership. Personally, I have always loved being in charge and I am not afraid to take part in decision making. Through adequate leadership experiences and involvement in various organizations ever since high school, I have developed two notable qualities that I believe could make a good leader that has nothing to do with gender.
What we need, first and foremost, is the ability to listen. During my senior year in high school, I was trusted to be the group leader of our Christian community. I was responsible to lead the weekly services and the occasional charity events, and also being a definite member in our annual retreat committee. In order to drive the team to reach common goals, leadership has to be built upon healthy dialogue. I am not one to exercise one-way communication without paying attention to the notions of the multitude. I always held brainstorming sessions from which I could gather necessary information. It allowed me not only to delegate tasks appropriately, but also to produce creative programs. As a result, all my peers didn't have problems to get their jobs done because every member was assigned to duties that fit their skills and abilities. Furthermore, everybody would get a sense of ownership of the projects, because we all got involved in the decision making process.
The second key feature of a true leadership is integrity. I believe the only way to influence others is to be the example. I have been trusted couple of times to lead several small events at my office whether it was work related or simply a social event like an office gathering. Leading an organization in school or university is not an easy task, but taking leadership in your workplace is a whole other level because many of the colleagues that you have to lead might be your seniors or maybe even higher in rank, and sometimes they do not like to be told what to do. I always positioned myself as part of the team rather than an overseer. For example, when we held our yearly office gathering, I took part in every stage and kept track of every process. Not only did I work extra hours, but I also took more responsibilities than the rest of the team. It became easier for me to demand my colleagues' commitments when I myself had walked the talk.
To sum up, effective leadership requires integrity and excellent communication skills in conjunction with other necessary attributes. Gender does not guarantee the success of a leadership, our characters and abilities do. I believe female leaders are every bit as good if not better than male leaders, regardless of our social and cultural expectations. Women should never set the bar too low, and moreover let others determine our position.
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I will really appreciate for the help. Thanks a lot before :)Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Nieke, this essay doesn't really deliver solid examples of your leadership and influencing skills. What you wrote is a definition essay with examples of your early leadership styles. What the essay requires are solid examples of your leadership and influencing skills within your current professional setting. Talk about how you developed your leadership skills because of your job. Talk about your real leadership experiences in a major setting. Don't relegate yourself to simple leadership roles because the scholarship foundation looks for go-getters, people who know what they want and how to go after it. Think of times at work when you needed to coax a co-worker to finish an assigned task that you were assigned to lead the team towards accomplishing. Talk about how you did that. These are the styles by which you can prove that you have leadership and influencing abilities. You will need to write a totally new essay to accomplish that so you better get started. This essay is too simple to present to the reviewer. It needs to be more complex and profession relevant in order to compete with the other applicants.
