Hi All,
Currently, I'm applying for Chevening Scholarship. Seeking utmost assistance to give input and feedback for my Leadership and Influence Question. Thanks in advance.
Leadership is not a qualification
Leadership is not a qualification that people born with, yet a lifetime journey. I believe leadership skill will develop along the way while experiencing the process.
Once I enrolled to university, I found activity that could develop myself and networking. I actively participated at AIESEC, an international leadership organization whereby fully exposed about social issues, management and leadership skill. My 3 years AIESEC journey started as member and participated on several projects until graduated as Vice President (VP) of Expansions AIESEC Bandung. Being VP Expansions, I managed 4 island entities outside Java Island, which were new to international leadership platform, like AIESEC.
As an archipelagic country, the biggest island in Indonesia is Java. Therefore, managing expansions outside Java was inspiring yet effortful, facing heterogeneous characteristics from time zone, local culture, current condition to virtual management limitation. Virtual meeting as the only communication channel held on weekly basis by adjusting time zone to understand each expansion problem based on their stage. In deeper, problem at new entity was around limited understanding towards impact to society because of unfamiliarity to international organization, lost of members' motivation due to virtual interaction, and legality issue within university. I applied different strategy to solve issues, for instance visiting entities to empower members directly, created local conference based on entity needs to introduce program, and had a meeting with university board to resolve legality issue. As leader, I learnt to build strong foundation and organization culture of entities as legacy.
Beginning my position as Vice President, I encountered few challenges within my team as well, for instance dealing with members personal issue whereby affected overall team performance. Communication plays important role. I approached team members personally, understood their circumstances, especially when they had issues at academic, encouraged them to avoid demotivation when they might not achieve target. As the result, achieving goal needed mutual respect and well engagement. Hence, as a leader; it's a must to be observant by understanding the status quo, which formed the best possible solution to maintain the community.
Final project for my expansions was organizing first local conferences at two different islands to engage members and potential member as well as introduce AIESEC to create more impact towards society. Assisting conference virtually for 2 months was so challenging whereby I communicated intensely since creating concept, approving accommodation and promotional tools using only Skype. I assigned specific job to committee member and check on progress. I observed the excitement of members to prepare this event. Leadership is developing yourself by developing others. Pressure and limitation bonded us stronger as a team. As the result, member recruitment target achieved, 50% of members applied for higher role and 40% interested in joining our social impact regular projects. It was great achievement for new entities.
Last but not least, I believe I'm a suitable candidate of this scholarship as I have experiences in managing team, influencing people, motivating & developing people to create positive impact to society, which I believe starting from us, young generation.Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Joana, the first thing you have to change about this essay is the title. By titling it "Leadership is Not a Qualification" you are implying that the Chevening requirement for this particular essay is not important. It could have an adverse effect on the reviewer. Change it to something more positive like "Leaders are Created" or the one you used above "Leadership is a Lifetime Journey". Those sound more positive than "Leadership is not a Qualification".
Next, your actual narrative based on your AIESEC EXPERIENCE isn't impressive. Virtual leadership of an academic organization does not have the same problems, leadership requirements, influencing necessities, and task delegation abilities as physical leadership of a professional team or organization. While your work here does indicate leadership, it is nothing but foundational leadership, or the basis of your current leadership skills. It is not actual leadership in the context of being a future leader and influencer in your country based on either a strong sense of community service or professional ambitions.
Your presentation can be admired on an amateur level. It is not competitive enough for a cut-throat, competitive scholarship program like Chevening. This will be viewed as a good read, but not really qualified on the basis of possible national leadership and influencing abilities on your part. There needs to be a sense of you being able to apply the leadership and influencing skills that you learned in college within a larger, national or local community scope. At the moment, this only applies within an academic setting so it doesn't work in terms of application requirements.
Go beyond virtual reality. Discuss a real time physical event that you had to handle that had significant repercussions for you as the leader of the team. Go professional of national in scale. Leave the virtual academic side where it is, in the past. As a leader, we need to see you in the immediate past or present accomplishing leadership and influencing tasks and goals.
