"Father's business" - Chevening scholarship review

my work in Afghanistan

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.

Due to my own strong commitment I started taking responsibility of my father's business "Wais and sons Blacksmith workshop" from the year 2006 to 2009 and that time we were having almost 30 people working under one workshop floor, I was managing on how to receiving customer orders, processing their jobs, directing responsible staff and finally delivering customer vehicles and taking feedbacks, I worked as a team leader with all the staff, and could handle the business through the year with great coordination with employees. The company's turnover increased by 45% from 3.3 million rupees to 4.8 million in the years between 2006 to 2009.

During my studies where I was the topper of my batch receive an offer from one of the RMA Group Afghanistan managers to work with them; from 2011 up to 2013 I served as a service advisor with the mentioned company.

At this stage I was responsible for the workshop in receiving customers' vehicles, processing Job cards, preparing quotations and invoices, there was almost 5 work centers which worked under my lead (blacksmith, denter, painter, mechanic, electrician).

In the period I was hired, due to better coordination and cooperation, proper management and increased efficiency in the workshop, RMA Afghanistan got a huge contract of U.S Army for their vehicle maintenance and repair worth $ 4.5 million , Sterling Demining vehicle maintenance contract, German and Polish Embassy vehicle maintenance contract and local private customers which worth huge amount of money for the company.

From October, 2013 up to now I am working as an office administrator at Chief of Staff Office, Ministry of National Defense Afghanistan, when I join the ministry every task or work was done manually and per day approximately 300 to 350 official documents were processed.

I advised the them to initiate a project of automation for that they have assigned me for the job of automation of the office documents, during that I have developed a centralized Database system in order to computerized all the data entry at one place and could be utilized at other terminals, this I could complete with the help of MS Excel and RDMS system.

With the help of this system all the necessary department wise and directorate reports are generated automatically. It is worth mentioning that this Database has been developed by me free of cost and lead maintained by me where 80 percent of the total employees of the office take advantage of it. Further I plan to develop a feedback and online application system for ministry of national defense which will reduce the crowed.

in the year 2016 due to enlargement of road and dispute between the two village tribe, at Panjsher province, water brook was destroyed and was left as destroyed for the last five years before 2016, due to which no irrigation was there for the mentioned period for almost 20 hectare land and approximately 1500 trees, after the detailed discussion and negotiation I could convinced both the tribes for release of water supply.

The project cost $ 18500.00 which was approved by Chief Executive of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and helped in the community at large which ended in mid 2016, ultimately the trees were successfully grown and land were irrigated on the other hand the farmers could earn their livelihood.

Raheemi, there are two potential leadership and influencing presentations in this essay that you can use for a revised presentation. The problem, is that both events lack a proper reference and influencing presentation. The situations I speak of are the times when you led your family business and your most recent occupation with the military. These are the two work related experiences that I believe you could better build upon to create a proper semblance of your leadership and influencing abilities on a local and national scale. Both of which will be sure to impress the reviewer.

For the family business, you need to prove that you were capable of crisis management even though you were handling a small family business, you were able to lay the foundation for your future development as a local leader and influencer. Perhaps there was a time when the business was in trouble and you had to influence certain parties, or the employees to resolve the issue without closing the family business. The leadership and influencing skills on your part would be highly evident in that scenario.

Then create a transition paragraph that would help to connect your previous experience with your job at the ministry of defense. Even though you are just an office administrator, I believe that you could find a time when you were called upon to lead and influence a particular sector in the office. This being the ministry of defense, you can highlight your national leadership and influencing skills. The projects you indicate are too administrative to allow you to highlight your leadership and influencing abilities on a national scale. This part of your narrative shows that you are capable of working alone, but not that you can lead a team. It highlights your innovative ideas, but not your ability to influence your superiors through your leadership of a team and the method by which they accomplish their tasks.

Pay attention to my suggestions and try to develop a new draft based on either one or both of the suggested events. Use the event that best illustrates your leadership and influencing abilities. While these are the potentially best methods to do that, the activities you have presented do not make me confident that you can actually pull it off. So take your time. think about clear instances that can help to explain the required skills in the essay. You have the time to think about it and revise this essay properly.

Don't use this version. It doesn't showcase any true leadership and influencing abilities that could be useful in strengthening your application. It lacks focus as there is no true target to your presentation. The most this essay can do is serve as the draft basis of your new essay which hopefully, will be better developed than this one. If you are not sure about how to change your essay, look at the available samples at this site. You won't lack for related examples to your applications and in fact, you can learn from the mistakes of others in relation to improving your own presentation.

Dear Holt,

Thank you for your kind suggestions, of course i will make corrections on thoes points you mentioned and reshare it for your review.

thanks

I started taking responsibilities of my father's business "Wais and sons Blacksmith workshop" from the year 2006 to 2009, it has been started in the year 1985 mostly interactive with individual customers in terms receiving orders and controlling inside jobs as well, I and my team worked as a team for inside, however, I was face of the workshop to influence individual customers in receiving business orders. I managed the business in critical situation when inflation rate of the highest 19.6 % and competition was tough, through accepting new orders and increasing the labor hours in order to cover the losses for the previous order, The Company's turnover despite ups and down increased by 45% from 3.3 million rupees to 4.8 million in the years between 2006 to 2009.

As a Service Advisor for RMA Group Afghanistan a US Based company, 2011 to 2013, control and lead 5 work centers which worked under my lead (blacksmith, denter, painter, mechanic, electrician) and we work as team to accomplish the target of $ 180,000.00 in order to maintain in the competition with other strong competitors like NoLemon.

Due to proper leadership, time management, effective cooperation, efficient utilization of resources, on time delivery of the service, fair customer communication and customer satisfaction, RMA Workshop had got a huge contract of U.S Army for their vehicle maintenance and repair worth $ 4.5 million, and some others like: Sterling Demining vehicle maintenance contract, German and Polish Embassy vehicle maintenance contract and local private customers which worth huge amount of money for the company, during the years, US Army contract was further extended for six more months as a result of concrete leadership and influential activities.

2013 to until, Ministry of National Defense, I advised and convinced Major General Ashiqullah Gharib Chief of staff office for initiation of automation project, which has been approved, 6 people were assigned where I served as team leader, and properly instruct and communicate to them about the design, layout, back end and front end of the data base, this we could complete as team work with the help of MS Excel and RDMS system under proper guidance and phase to phase succession of my skills.

After successful implementation of the project a group a group of 40 office staff including department manger were trained, concept of automation was further proposed to other departments of Mod by me which has been approved by chief, as of now most of the departments have their own Database system.

2016 due to enlargement of road, at Panjsher province, water brook was destroyed and was left as destroyed for the last five years before 2016, due to which no irrigation was there for the mentioned period for almost 20 hectare land and approximately 1500 trees, after the detailed discussion and negotiation I could convinced both the tribes (500 people) for releasing of water supply. Ultimately the trees were successfully grown and lands were irrigated on the other hand the farmers could earn their livelihood.