"Leadership comes from within". Everyone is a leader in their own way. Chevening Essay

Hello good people, this is my very first essay. Greatly appreciate if you could give me some feedback 😊

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.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE ESSAY

I do agree with the quotes of "Leadership comes from within". Everyone is a leader in their own way, consequently all of us are responsible for leading ourselves, especially for getting the best results.

My leadership skill appeared when I dealt with my anger in grief about parental divorce. I led myself to turn my sadness and anger into positive one by joining an activity that I liked namely marching band. Because of having self-discipline and problem-solving skill, I had an opportunity to lead the marching band team.

Being a leader for one year has taught me many valuable things. I took almost two weeks in influencing the teachers, coaches, and seniors who felt pessimistic to join international championship. At the end, my team and I proved that we were able to get eight trophies for each category. The happiest thing that moment was not getting the trophies, but when I was successful to let my team felt what was the teamwork looked like when everyone on the team demonstrated their role flawlessly. As a band leader, I had a big dream for my team. I repeated my words to motivate them to dare to try the new things and not to be afraid to take a big step.

When I pursued towards a bachelor's degree, I also had an opportunity to lead my class project to create an event introducing Thailand's culture. I also told my class team to dare to create the new things that differentiated us from the other classes. Getting many sponsors and media partners for the event enhanced my skills about influencing the others. The power of the teamwork made the event ran very well and exceeded our expectation. Therefore, I was trusted by my lecturer to give an assessment to all members as the score of the final project.

Right now, I am working as a corporate marketing communications that have responsibility to handle and to lead 16 hotels' marketing communications officers under my brand's flagship. For this case, I believe that leadership is not only about leading the team, but also the ability to influence and to motivate the others to work together on doing the same thing. I often need to deal with a hotel's general manager under my brand's flagship to convince them that the program which I do has a good impact for our brand. Listening is the most important skill that I need to have. By listening, I know that I can gain knowledge that may have an impact on the future.

Three of the experiences that I told above have taught me that leadership is a big responsibility, not a badge of honor. Leadership has to elevate the others by sharing the positive thoughts and energy to those around us. As a young leader, I have good achievement. Enriching new experiences and acquiring new knowledge and skills from Chevening Scholarship will move me forward to inspire young future Indonesian leaders.

Bella, let me tell you right now, the reviewer does not care about your parents divorce. Take that portion out of the essay. This is an application for a severely competitive and difficult scholarship program. I strongly suggest that you keep the tone academic and professional at all times. Do not try to tug at the heartstrings of the reviewer because that will not work. The minute he reads about your parents divorce, he will throw out this application. You are not applying for admission to college, which is where the reference to your parent's divorce belongs. Instead, focus only on the professional aspect of your leadership skills. That would be the corporate marketing communications aspect of your career. Indicate what your official title or position is and discuss your leadership and influencing skills within that context. You will need to adjust your opening and closing statement in order to make the essay more prompt responsive though. It is something that has to be done if you wish to have a competitive essay to present with your application. Remember, no academic representations, just professional. That is all the reviewer will be interested in reading about.

@Holt

Thank you for your kind suggestion. I'll rewrite it later.
Regarding spelling and grammar, is there any mistakes that I write ?

few rephrasing for you

I also told my class team to dare to ... -> I persuade my class team to have a courage to create unique things that made us different with the others;

also you mentioned 'dare' in the previous paragraph so better not to reuse it again

took almost two weeks in ... --> I dont think you have to mention the time frame since it does not really impress and give important information

Merged:

Leadership is not a badge of honor, but a big responsibility. CHEVENING ESSAY

Hey, I've revised my first essay for Chevening about Leadership & Influence.
Kindly appreciate your suggestions about my essay, including spelling and grammar errors.

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.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

Leadership is a competence that comes from within. One thing that sometimes people missed is they consider leadership as a position. Leadership is not a badge of honor, but a big responsibility. My leadership skill appeared when I joined a marching band team. Being a member of the team has taught me many valuable things for my personal growth. Because of having an ability to encourage one another to keep going and having problem-solving skill, therefore I had an opportunity to lead the marching band team.

As a band leader, I had a big dream for my team. Joining an international championship was one of my vision to teach my team about self-confidence and how to calm their fears in front of international stage. Unfortunately, my teachers and seniors felt pessimistic to join the championship. I took almost two weeks in convincing them by motivating them to dare to try the new things and not to be afraid to take a big step. At the end, we proved that we were able to get eight trophies for each category. The happiest thing that moment was not when we got the trophies, but when I succeeded to let my team felt what was the teamwork looked like when everyone on the team demonstrated their role flawlessly.

My influence skill has enhanced as time goes by. I also had an opportunity to lead a project to create an event introducing Thailand's culture. My team and I were successful to get many sponsors and media partners. I didn't ask them to do anything that I didn't do. Conversely, I led my team by giving them examples and the power of the teamwork made the event ran very well and exceeded our expectation.

Right now, I am working as a Corporate Marketing Communications that have responsibility to lead 16 hotels' Marketing Communications Officers under my brand's flagship from different cities. I need to create programs that fit with their all target markets. Knowing how to deliver the messages properly is an effective way to convince them to follow my programs. My career also urged me to have an ability of influencing upward. Sometimes I need to convince the Founder of the company about my ideas. I am not only engaging him to listen my ideas, but I also need to have the most important skill of listening. Being a strong communicator that communicating persuasively is an answer how my ideas can be accepted by my President Director.

The experiences have taught me that leadership should elevate the others by sharing the positive thoughts and energy to those around us. I believe that leadership is not only about leading the team, but also the ability to influence and to motivate the others to work together on doing the same thing. As a young leader, I have good achievements. Enriching new experiences and acquiring new knowledge and skills from Chevening Scholarship will move me forward to inspire young future Indonesian leaders. (495 words)

@bellachyntia
You have great points and to keep your readers engaged and glued to your content until the last sentence, use subheadings that are summarizing your paragraphs. Also, have a conclusion at the end of your article.

#MyThoughts. ;)

Bella, your presentation should only focus on your leadership and influencing experience on your professional career. It is more relevant to the pursuit of future leaders and influencers under the Chevening requirements. The academic leadership skills that you present, though admirable, doesn't qualify as a true leadership skill because the presentation is based on an amateur leadership ability that is not directly related to your professional leadership skill, style, and influencing method. By properly developing the representation of both in your professional skills paragraph, you will be able to better deliver a clear idea of your leadership style. You will also need to develop a better presentation of your influencing skills because you only told the reviewer about it. What he needs to do is read about how you implement it. The same goes for your leadership skills. It is all a matter of presentation in line with the prompt requirements.

@Competent_Anna

Greatly appreciate your suggestion. Thank you :)

Hey, I rewrite and rethink about my essay. Greatly appreciate if you could give me some feedback :D

LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE ESSAY

Leadership is neither a matter of position nor a badge of honor. Leadership is a big responsibility. My first leadership experience was when I was appointed as a leader of a marching band team because I was deemed to have an ability to encourage one another to keep going and having problem-solving skill. Being on the team has taught me many valuable things. Therefore, I implement it today.

Based on experience that I got, leadership is not only about leading the team, but also the ability to influence & motivate the others to work together to achieve the shared goals. As a Corporate Marketing Communications Officer who has responsibility to lead 16 hotels' Marketing Communications Officers under my brand's flagship from different cities, I need to create programs that suit all their target markets. Knowing how to deliver the messages properly is an effective way to convince them to follow my programs.

Having the courage to take an initiative to make anything better is also the ability that leaders should have. After having many cancellations from guests because of fake travel warning about Mount Agung in Bali, we are trying to fully support government in creating awareness that Bali is still safe. My boss unpredictably showed me that he has edited video about Mount Agung that he got from Youtube without giving credit title to the creator. Consequently, I didn't agree with what he did. I suggested him to provide free stay voucher at our hotel in Bali and thus I can make a partnership with an online media to help us in creating big awareness. Being a strong communicator who can influence persuasively is the key how my ideas can be accepted by my President Director.

I believe that leadership should elevate the others by sharing the positive thoughts and energy to those around us. Nowadays, many bad publicities dominate headlines. Hence, I want to take a part to encourage people around me, especially the hoteliers and media friends, to utilize this digital era in creating a peaceful world by sharing good publicity about something. Gaining new experiences and acquiring new knowledge and skill from Chevening Scholarship will move me forward to find better solutions in terms of communications. (369 words)

@Holt
Hey holt, I wish I can get any reviews from your side regarding the revised below. Thank you

LEADERSHIP

Leadership is not only about leading the team, but also the ability to influence & motivate the others to work together to achieve the shared goals. My first leadership experience was when I became a Marketing Communications Apprentice at Fairmont Jakarta. As an apprentice, I was deemed to have the ability to easily adapt to a rapidly changing industry. Therefore, I was trusted to handle 10 restaurants on a digital platform named Zomato. I had an opportunity to train all Restaurant Managers. I influenced them to keep managing a good content on Zomato to increase awareness of the restaurants by providing a sample of content plan that I have executed and a case of Zomato's competitor that was successful utilizing the platform. Before my internship period ended, I succeeded to drive them to create their own strategy to operate their restaurants on Zomato.

Leadership is neither a matter of position nor a badge of honor. Leadership is a big responsibility. As a Corporate Marketing Communications Officer at Best Western Hotels & Resorts, I have a responsibility to lead 16 hotels' Marketing Communications Officers under my brand's flagship. I need to teach them to create promotional campaigns that suit all their target markets. Accordingly, I engaged them to use social media to promote their campaigns by giving a detail information and an example of a campaign on social media that I have made about Indonesia's Independence Day that has a huge impact. Shortly after, they implemented what I shared with them with their own campaign ideas and their General Manager thanked me because the effect was quite good. Knowing how to deliver the messages properly was an effective way to influence their mind and behavior.

I also need to have the courage to take an initiative to make anything better. After having many cancellations from guests because of fake travel warning about Mount Agung in Bali, we are trying to fully support the government in creating awareness to public that Bali is still safe. My boss unpredictably showed me that he had edited a video of Mount Agung that he got from YouTube without giving credit title to the creator. Consequently, I did not agree with what he did. I influenced him not to use the video and gave him clear explanation about bad impact for us in the future and instead used a professional one to made the video originally for the company. Being a strong communicator who can influence persuasively is the key how my ideas can be accepted by my President Director.

As a young leader, I have good achievement. Gaining new experiences and acquiring new knowledge and skills from Chevening Scholarship will move me forward to inspire another future Indonesian leaders. My leadership and influencing experiences will also be an asset for me to promote the Chevening scholarship program upon returning home.