Hard Work - being the "positive" role model for peers. Chevening essay on Leadership

Hello! I have drafted my four essays for a Chevening Scholarship. I would appreciate your feedback. I have changed some details with X, Y, and Z and other letters. Thank you in advance! 1 at a time please.

Hard Work and Collaboration

1. 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.

To begin with, I have changed schools four times and even the university due to relocation. Every time I moved to another city, I needed to prove my worth in a new social and academic environment.

As one of the top performing students at school and at the university I believe to have been one of the "positive" role models for my peers.

I still remember the time how the school changed my vision and at that time I have felt my leadership skills first. For example, I often organized sessions for my classmates for preparation to exams and managed concert programs. Also, at X National University, I was a Commander of a platoon at Military chair service, Vice-president of English Debates Club at X State University, Leader of the university team at the Law Olympiad. I have also actively participated in conferences, roundtables and academic competitions.

At my first year at the university, I volunteered as a tutor for 7th grade freshmen at a boarding school in X. I was responsible for supervision of their preparation to classes, providing assistance at the dormitory, organizing various leisure activities and for sure this experience enhanced my leadership skills at early stage. This experience allowed me to develop active listening, counselling, stress management skills as well and made me a more responsible person.

When elected as a Vice-President of the Debates club, I ran a promotion campaign to attract new members as the club had only few at the time. We engaged around ten debaters, prepared them for X city mayor's cup, and got the championship and the third place.

Moreover, at T company, though my position does not involve team management, I have learnt a lot from my previous and current manager on effective communication and constructive criticism.

When I came up with an idea of organizing weekly knowledge-sharing sessions within the team my manager liked the idea a lot and supported me.

I was the leader of the internal cooperation team during a major client audit. I managed to make everybody understand what was required from their end and ensured the deadlines were met to address client needs. The work of the team was recognized by the management at audit closure.

Moreover, I have a genuine passion for law and I am proud to be lawyer.
Further, I plan to establish a Fund for Promotion of Legal Education. The mission of the Fund would be provision of financial aid to prospective students willing to pursue a degree in Law and organization of legal writing competitions. I started a Youtube channel recently to promote civil society values.

I have recently completed a course on Inclusive Leadership.
In conclusion, my experience made me understand it is more a matter of hard work, effective communication and collaboration that make a good leader of a person, rather than inherent qualities. I am sure Chevening will allow me to develop my leadership further and connect with future leaders from other countries.

Hi Adil,
In my opinion, your first essay focused too much on your leadership during your academic years. It would be better to elaborate further on your current leadership skills and also experience in your current profession.

Dear nemeziduz,

you have to pay an attention to your grammar, here some corrections by me:
We have become friends by the that time and this enabled us to communicate effectively and improve our work

Hello,
Here are some corrections,

preparation for exams
The English Debates Club
only a few at the time.
their end, and
I am proud to be a lawyer
made me understand it was more

Adil, an academic description of the development of your leadership and influencing skills does not qualify this essay for Chevening submission. Having read your work, I can tell you that this is more of a collegiate personal essay presentation than a Chevening application essay. Putting such a low discussion development on your professional leadership and influencing skills does a disservice to this essay. You have not exactly discussed an effective leadership and influencing skill in this aspect either. It is highly minor when compared to the abilities of the other applicants responding to the same essay. You must revise this essay to totally remove your academic background then find a work related leadership and influencing opportunity that carries more weight. There is no need to discuss your idea to establish a foundation. That is a topic that you should be introducing in your post study plans, not in the leadership and influencing essay. Refocus the essay to discuss your professional foundation of your leadership and influencing skills instead. I hope that I can review your second presentation as well. Please consider making this an URGENT thread before posting your revised essay. It will allow me the opportunity to give you a second review.

@Holt Good day! I tried to rework my essay to reflect your comments and polish it. I would appreciate your feedback.

To begin with, as a top performing student at school and at the university I believe to have been one of the "positive" role models for my peers.

Adil, I reviewed the advice that I previously gave you and it seems that you still have not removed the reference to the academic leadership skills that I recommended. That is really not serving a purpose in an essay that demands professional examples of your leadership and influencing style. It takes up more than half the essay space. If you insist on using that reference, then keep it down to one paragraph. Just use it to establish your leadership beginnings, training, and influencing style. You can do that in 5 sentences. It does not require half the page. Lengthen your professional representation as best as you can because those are the leadership and influencing requirements of the essay. If you do not revise the essay to the letter, then it becomes too amateur in presentation and will not have the ability to influence the reviewer. Remember, you are trying to convince the reader that you are a future leader and influencer in your country. That cannot be established by academic criteria. That can only be measured by your performance as a leader and influencer in the professional world.

Mary, hello! I revised the essay. I added a new paragraph on my experience dealing with state authorities as a lawyer. I feel that this might be worthy to note. What do you think?

Adil, you really need to remove the first two paragraphs in this essay. I have repeatedly told you that the academic side is not applicable to this essay. Focus only on the professional side. Do not include the work that you did as a lawyer unless you were able to resolve the case using influence and mediation instead of litigation. Your essay is already extremely strong in terms of your leadership skills. It is leaping off the page. Yet your influencing style is non-existent. I know that lawyers work with legal teams and that you have to get them to help you do legal research and other things. Can you think of a time when the team was refusing to cooperate with you? What was the situation? How did you influence them to support you? That is the missing link in the essay. You can remove the part about representing your friend in court to get his salary in exchange for a longer explanation of how you use your influencing skills in your line of work. You can change your opening paragraph to explain that you work as a corporate lawyer and that this is where your leadership and influencing style was honed and polished. That will take the place of the academic representation you keep trying to present.