I have a dominant character with good personality. CHEVENING ESSAY LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE QUESTION

Several activities I was involved in

I have a dominant character with good personality that make people who surround me feel comfort with my presence. People also know me as someone who has wide knowledge. The combination of favorable personality and wide insight cause me effortless to get an exposure in order to lead and influence people. Furthermore, these following experiences are clear evidences that indicate I have the capacity as a leader as well an influencer.

During college, I was appointed as one of the academic team who responsibled for students academic. In my sixth semester, we faced a difficult condition, specifically many of my friends from the same year as me, were evaluated by the campus and received warning letter either because of their GPA or credits were below the minimum requirements. Based on it, I recommended each member of academic team to take responsibility as a tutor for certain number of students. Since then, I had to lead about 15 students for three courses, namely: mathematical economics, statistics, and microeconomics. Along one semester I had to make sure that they would pass the course and did not take remedial class on the next semester. I prepared their teaching materials and also arranged weekly meeting (besides their official class with lecturers) to teach them and discuss problem examples, and of course gave them homeworks as an evaluation. At the end of the semester, I made it, and they passed with very satisfying score.

During my work life, I was involved in several social activities. When Sumatera and Kalimantan were blanketed from land and forest fires in September 2015, I initiated a fundraising action for the area where the people got less attention and the aid was not distibuted well. I was driven to help out when one of my friends, who came from Tembilahan (Riau Province), told me about the condition in her hometown. Hence, I focused on the needs of the people there. I coordinated with my college friends to design the pamphlets and shared this action through social media as a campaign to invite whoever to participate. The action was carried out well and beyond my expectation. The funds collected was allocated to buy drugs and sent immediately to Tembilahan and distributed through the local church. In fact, there was surplus funds that could be used to help victims in Palangkaraya (Central Kalimantan Province) and had been channeled via one local NGO.

The other social activities that I took part recently was mission activities in inland Nusa Tenggara Timur, namely Sei Village. Sequentially, we gave free medical treatment, provided training for processing their agricultural products, and held a fun class for children. All the journey of this mission was written on my blog and I shared it widely. Evidently, this sharing led to tangible results by inspiring a few of my friends to do similar activities in our hometown in North Sumatera. We are developing the idea currently and on progressing to execute the project on this next December.

Sehat, you obviously have much to share in terms of your leadership and influencing abilities. However, you need not explain each notable achievement that you have had in terms of leadership and influencing starting from your college days. Since Chevening is focused on helping to develop the leaders of tomorrow, the most impressive leadership and influencing experience that you should be sharing with the reviewer, will be the actions of a leader in a professional or socio-civic setting. In truth, the settings that you have shared here are too general in presentation and does not offer any real insight into your leadership skills even though you did your best to call your attention to your leadership and influencing skills in your opening statement.

My suggestion is this, pick either a professional or socio-civic incident where you actually served as the leader and primary moving force ( influencer) of the project. Pick the best one that you have. The one that you feel will allow you to best display your leadership and influencing abilities. Thoroughly explain the background of the event, why you had to become the leader, how you led the group, make sure that you explain the difficulties that you faced as the leader, then relate how your influencing skills paid an important role in getting the job done. The reviewer needs to get an insight as to how you handle conflict, how you resolve conflicts in a group or on an individual level, and how you influence those you are leading towards a proper solution to whatever problem exists.

While you did explain or narrate some of these skills in your essay, the fact that you presented too many activities did not allow you to properly present and develop those skills within the context of the prompt. You need to narrow it down to just one, impressive and well developed instance that challenged you to display your leadership and influencing skills. It takes only one to impress the reviewer. More than that and the reviewer will only have a narrative of your skills instead of a justified claim that you actually possess the the ability to become a future leader and influential person in your home country.

@Holt

Dear Mary, thank you for the insightful input. I will revise it very soon.

Anw, if I could ask, for the "references letter," for Chevening, which two you feel better? Both professional or one pro-one academics?

I need your suggestion.

Thank you, Mary!

Sehat, for a balanced recommendation letter, you should try to offer one professional, instead of academic recommendation and one civic recommendation. Since you are a masters degree student, you need to deliver a recommendation letter from someone at your office who can vouch for the importance of this course in your line of work and also, support or validate your claims regarding your work ethic and ability to complete difficult tasks. Remember, you are now a masters degree student, so the college studies you had are considered null and void at this point. The second letter, can use a recommendation from a member of your socio-civic organization. This will be a letter from someone who leads or works with you (as a superior) in the organization or community where you volunteer. Such a letter should work towards praising your personal character and work ethic as well.

I haven't read the entirety of the essay yet but your title I think is lacking. It doesn't encapsulate what your essay is all about. When you factor in the corrections given by other people here, I suggest you improve the title.

@BeautifulDay

Dear Kenneth, please give me a significant input. The title even doesnt matter in Chevening, because we type directly on the online application, without giving a title.

Thank you!