Leaders are made of the sincere, devoted pursuit after a cause or a vision

Chevening - Leadership question.

I believe that leaders are made of the sincere, devoted pursuit after a cause or a vision. That is why I would claim that one of my most valuable assets is my ability to develop my own vision, to re-formulate it into a strategy, and to confidently and persistently act on my own initiative. I can think of two examples to best demonstrate my approach to leadership.

First, as an undergraduate student, participating in the youth entrepreneurship community ENACTUS, I made my way to be the only female participant in the graphic design team for the year 2013. I did such a great job, celebrated by all my peers, that a tradition was initiated after I graduated to have a quota of amateur graphic designer female participants in what was formerly a male dominated activity.

Second, as a fresh graduate taking my first full-time jobs as a Document Controller for (detail). My job description entailed keeping an updated, coded and signed set of documents dictating the workflow of an organisation pursuing after an ISO-9001 certification. Few month into my job, I grew increasingly alarmed by the amount of time and paper wasted on keeping the documentation system hardly updated for such a dynamic institution of 1000+ employees.

Soon after, I came up with a plan to transfer our paper-based documentation system into a much more efficient electronic one. I took the time to design a fully detailed mock-up, implemented using storage clouds to help me demonstrate the merits of my vision. Then, I set sail to present my idea to the responsible individuals in the top management. Though my concept was applauded by my superiors, still, I was confronted with the cost constraint. That was when I decided to figure out another approach to tackle the cost/benefit issue.

I decided to collaborate with colleagues from other departments to find ways through which we can demonstrate the collective benefit from an electronic documentation system, offering the flexibility and confidentiality, to update, approve, and communicate our work process. Indeed, discussions with the HR department reflected the benefits of regular HR policy communication. Besides, discussions with the customer complaints department reflected the percentage of errors recorded owing to miscommunicated procedural updates between the different teams in the technical unit.

Afterwards, I put my concept through a long refinement process of adding, omitting and adjusting. Eventually, after a year of dedicated work, the project was approved and scheduled for Implementation.

Currently, it's prevailed that the system will is of dire importance to the company in the process of conforming to the new ISO-9001/2015 qualifications. Moreover, I trust that it hasn't just helped modernise the work process in the Company, but most importantly, it saved Mother Earth loads of paper that were deemed to waste.

Samar, you need only one strong example of leadership and influencing skill to present to the reviewer. In all honesty, I believe that the professional experience that you presented in this essay will be the strongest example that you can provide to the reviewer. You have the leadership role down pat. Showing how you can lead by example and action even with the odds are against you. Now, all you have to do is provide a clearer idea as to how you managed to influence the heads of the other departments to help you achieve your goals for the betterment of the company. You have a pretty strong background in terms of leadership and influence. I base that on the professional story that you shared. So go the extra mile and make sure that this experience can help your application become competitive in the end.