Leadership and Influence
According to Great Man Theory, leaders are born with the right traits and abilities such as characteristics, intellect, skills, and confidence. I believe that we all have particular aptitudes for it, and I realized I needed bravery to break the barrier if I wanted to embrace my potential. I began to seek leadership ability by contributing and joining in many activities.
There was an annual student art festival in high school where we initiated the concept; from its framework design, sponsorship, publicity, and attaining guest stars. The objective was to bring in as many outsiders as possible, and I was selected as one of the coordinators. Working with the team, I successfully obtained several sponsorships and published the event in newspapers and the city. The result of its time was fantastic, the crowds were huge, and we gained profit to be donated.
During my undergraduate, I was involved in a student association where a periodical council changed annually. I spent the first year joining activities to recognize the environment, continuously familiarizing the fresh graduate into our association during my second year. Next term, I was selected as the head bureau of media, responsible for distributing any information as we lacked some news. Considering that social media is not as popular now, I first established an Instagram student association account to channel recent news and information. The feedback was great as students felt like they were not missing what was recently happening on campus. Later on, I figured out it influenced other majors and alumni to utilize social media as a platform for broadcasting information.
The journey did not end there. When I graduated, I passed the PLN's job recruitment test among tens of thousands of applicants around Indonesia. Known as a state-owned electric utility enterprise, it runs plenty of units and hundreds of power plants around the country. I then worked in a supporting unit responsible for maintaining and repairing plant parts, also the youngest employee. The most significant challenge was forming excellent teamwork with a considerable age gap, entrusted with encouraging and convincing other PLN's other units to utilize our service. Although there were many obstacles, I managed to handle numerous projects, eventually overcame the issue, and happened to build a strong relationship among units. As a result, in 2019, together with the team, we successfully achieved the highest number of targets, almost four times greater than the previous while reducing the company's operational cost. Moreover, the relation among units is well-maintained, and our service is accounted reliable.
In conclusion, I am confident I have leadership qualities. However, there is still room for improvement. A great leader is expected to continuously learn, but at the same time, conflict of interest might be unavoidable. Therefore, I regard my experiences as a growing process and believe that I could be a better leader than I am now in the future.