Hi everyone. I'm not a native English speaker, so I'd appreciate your help in proofreading and correcting grammar and style mistakes in my essay bellow.
This is part of my application to a Chevening scholarship.
1. Chevening is looking for individuals that 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: 50 words, maximum word count: 500 words)
Eisenhower once said that "leadership is the art to get someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it". I believe this is a simplistic and old-fashioned view of the subject. Leadership is not directing a group of people that will blindly follow you. It is rather about inspiring people to reach their full potential and support them in moments of need. I believe that being a leader is about your ability to understand the specific needs of the team and act upon it. Therefore, I will describe situations when I saw that I could step up and help the group achieve a goal, rather than list occasions when I was formally in charge.
When I was in high school I participated in a Model United Nations, which is a conference where students represent delegations from various nation-states as it occurs in the real UN. This experience certainly influenced me to pursue a degree in International Relations. Upon getting into college, I joined an independent group that organizes Model UN for high school students. In a country where politics is deemed uninteresting, it was a long shot to try to instigate teenagers in discussions of world big themes.
My role was to mediate the discussions and help them finding a solution to the problems that the UN was facing in Somalia. Obviously, neither of us had a simple task. It required an intense effort to encourage students to lean in and speak their minds. Albeit a short time, I saw many get excited over discussions on how to tackle world poverty, inequality and sustained development. I am honored to have been able to support and mentor them. But I am sure that they have helped me even more by giving me a chance to develop some of my most distinctive traits as a leader. I learnt how to encourage a cooperative approach, to inspire and to motivate.
Those qualities were an asset in my internships when I had to deal with real life problems. Being an intern means being in a position of constant learning with few opportunities of leading. I tried to always take the most out of this position by looking up to the leaders in the company. I earned their confidence with a hardworking attitude and soon was trusted to lead small projects. My leadership potential was acknowledged and it became more and more often for me to be chosen by managers of different levels as leader of the team. These experiences were important for me to learn how to lead in a hierarchized environment where I wasn't at the top without disrespecting my peers.
In the end, leadership to me is about empowerment and collaborative work rather than Eisenhower's delegation of tasks. I have a long road ahead of me in order to become anything like the leaders I admire. Yet, I am committed to growing and always being a better leader than I was on the day before.
Mayara, I would like to advise you to not discuss your model UN participation in this essay. Since it happened in high school, it does not really count as a part of your real world experience which, is the main focus of the essay. The Chevening scholarship reviewer is going to be looking for real world leadership experience on your part and the Model UN just doesn't fall under that criteria. While you may have been trying to find solutions to real world problems at the conference, none of these ideas were implemented and thus, does not qualify as a real leadership experience.
I would rather have wanted to see you discuss your internship as it relates to the development of your leadership abilities. Name the company you interned for, what your job description was, and how you utilized leadership and influencing skills in this set up. Use specific examples of leadership, regardless of how irrelevant it might seem to you. What matters is that you can share real world leadership experience. If possible, relate these leadership woes to the leadership role that you envision for yourself in the future.
There are a number of Chevening leadership and influence essay samples available under this thread alone. Why don't you look over some of them so that you can get a better idea of how to write the internship leadership experience? As someone who will be up against candidates who have more and highly impressive real world leadership experience than you do, the only way that we can make your essay stand out is by making sure that it is presented in a creative and interesting manner. A method that will be sure to keep the reviewer interested in reading the essay and hopefully, add recall possibilities for your essay.
I don't really think that referring to Eisenhower at the beginning and end of your essay is necessary. If we can refocus your essay and present a more interesting example of your leadership and influence skills, you may just find that the Eisenhower references are really not needed in your work.
Hi Louisa,
Thanks for your considerations. I will work on my essay to follow these instructions and put more focus on my real world experiences. I will soon post a revised version of the essay.
Regarding the UN Model experience, I participated for the first time when I was in high school, but it was only upon getting into college that I started organizing the event and mentoring the students. Do you still think I should cut all of it? Maybe I could rephrase it to make this clearer and cut the high school part. Though the problems that *they* were tackling were not real, my ability to inspire and engage them were. My personal challenge wasn't to solve the issues, but to make them solve.
Yes, I believe you should cut it. Keep in mind that you are applying to become a scholar for a masters degree course. As such, you are expected to have had far more relevant experience in leadership and influencing people within a professional setting. All other applicants will be presenting real world influence results that can be verified by the scholarship committee. So you need to make sure that your own experience will reflect your professional ability to influence people. Influencing high school students is a far cry from the kind of influence that you need to exert in the professional world.
Don't forget that in a real world set up, an influential person is considered a good leader. He is a good leader because he can convince people to listen to him and follow his decisions. That convincing power is known as influence. His ability to change people's mind to think like him, or his ability to make people believe in what he is saying, is an example of a person with a strong influence. That is what we are looking for here. But not in an academic setting. Always aim to set yourself up in the professional world because the scholarship committee is looking for future leaders and influential people. That means, your experience has to be current and up to date in order to prove your ability as a leading professional in your chosen field.
While participating the Model U.N. is really something admirable during your undergraduate and high school years, it really loses its relevance once you leave college. While your involvement was to make the students be involved in the issues, the fact that it did not result in any real action or decision that was implementable in the real world makes it nothing more than a practice session from your past. The lack of implementation, even though you are rich in inspiration, means that the influence was incomplete.
Now, if you feel that you really want to use that example in your essay, then go ahead and do so. It is not my place to prevent you from doing something you want. My authority does not go beyond giving advice to the students :-) The final decision about the content of your paper is left all up to you.
I understand better now. This is great feedback that will help me improve not only this essay but the others that I'm working on. Thank you very much!
Draft 2 - I've tried to focus more on the specifics of my internships/job within the 500 word limit
Leadership is not directing a group of people that will blindly follow you. It is rather about inspiring people to reach their full potential and support them in moments of need. I believe that being a leader is about your ability to understand the specific needs of the team and act upon it. Therefore, I will describe situations when I saw that I could step up and help the group achieve a goal, rather than list occasions when I was formally in charge.
Being an intern means being in a position of constant learning with few opportunities of leading. My first significant professional experience was as an intern in the Development, Commerce, Finance and Investment research group of BRICS Policy Center. Even though I was the only undergraduate student in a group of scholars with masters and PhD degrees, I soon earned their confidence with a hardworking attitude and insightful contributions to the discussions. The biggest event of the year I worked there was the Rio+20 conference. The entire office was focused in producing relevant content to cover this. After several meetings where I brought relevant information to the table and helped the team brainstorm ideas to write policy papers, I was trusted to be the representative of our group in a task force for all activities related to the Rio+20 conference. I participated in a series of meetings with other research groups and by the end of the task force we delivered 50+ pages of content. Due to my involvement in all the activities related to Rio+20 I was asked to provide inputs and co-sign a research paper of my group that was produced by PhD level scholars. This experience gave me a chance to develop some of my most distinctive traits as a leader. I learnt how to coordinate groups with different backgrounds, to encourage a cooperative approach, to influence and to motivate.
Those qualities were an asset when I later became Government & Public Affairs (GPA) intern at BG Brasil, part of BG Group. I tried to always take the most out of this position by looking up to the leaders in the company. At first my job description was to support the managers with preparation of key messages, presentations and briefing packs. However, as I earned their confidence I was soon trusted to have my own projects and to lead discussions with other areas. Due to my performance I was contracted as GPA analyst, which expanded my responsibilities. I was trusted to be GPA representative in industry associations meetings where I had to leverage influence in support of BG projects. These experiences were important for me to learn how to lead in a hierarchized environment where I wasn't at the top without disrespecting my peers.
I have a long road ahead of me in order to become anything like the leaders I admire. Yet, I am committed to growing and always being a better leader than I was on the day before.
Mayara, you hit the nail on the head! This is perfect! Even without real leadership experience, I could clearly see, through your narrative, that you were entrusted with leadership like tasks that helped mold you into a potential leader who knows how to properly use her influence in creating a network of business contacts. Good job! One suggestion though, can you please add a paragraph that will highlight how you managed to influence a group of people or a person so that you can have a stand alone proof of your influence skills as the prompt requires? That will really help make the essay stronger.
Corrections:
Par. 1:
Leadership is not ABOUT directing a group of people
It is rather about inspiring people to reach their full potential and supporTING them in moments of need.
the specific needs of the team and actING upon it. Therefore, I will describe situations when RE I saw that
Par. 2:
Being an intern means being in a position of constant learning with few opportunities of FOR leading.
The biggest event of the year I worked WAS INVOLVED IN there was the Rio+20 conference.
and by the end of the task force we delivered 50+ pages of content.
I learnt ED how to coordinate groups with different backgrounds,
Par. 3:
Those qualities were PROVED TO BE an asset
when I later became A Government & Public Affairs (GPA) intern
I tried to always take MAKE the most out of this position by
At first , my job description
and to lead discussions withIN other areas. Due to my performance I was contracted as GPA analyst,
trusted to be THE GPA representative
Par. 4:
being a better leader than I was on the day before.
Louisa,
I've given a lot of thought to your suggestion of including a paragraph with a specific situation where I used my leadership and influence skills, but I'm having a hard time thinking of something that is really worth an entire paragraph. Besides, after the grammar corrections, the essay is exactly 500 words. Do you think it's worth cutting some parts of it to include a paragrah with information that might be not really interesting? If so, where should I cut?
Thank you!
