Leadership offers wide spectrum to develop, implement and persuade people towards a positive change

LEADERSHIP ESSAY FOR CHEVENING SCHOLARSHIP

Hello All,

I have drafted my first essay for the leader question of Chevening application. Please have a look and provide feedback. Thanks in advance!

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.

I always firmly believed that leadership offers a wide spectrum to develop, implement and persuade people towards a positive change, particularly of mindset. Being a female engineer in Pakistan, where the gender gap on an industrial level is extremely high, further making women holding a small percentage in the science and technology sector. The increased gender gap has made engineering termed as a 'male only' or 'male-dominated' sector, in the country. This further leads the male counterparts contemplating female engineers as ineligible to lead teams and projects on industrial levels.

My first leadership experience came from being promoted to lead/supervise a team of technicians during my first job at "company name' in 2014. My expertise in the field made me eligible to supervise a team of ten technicians, where my main tasks were to lead the team while conducting site surveys and closely monitor the team performance and work progress during the project implementation phase.

Where on one hand this work responsibility came as a huge opportunity for me in order to enhance my leadership qualities and work dedicatedly towards the timely closing of the project, on the other hand, I was challenged when three members of my team refused to work under my leadership. They consider it as inappropriate to work under a woman's leadership, thus raising questions about my eligibility and skills as an engineer as well as a leader. Moreover, they found it difficult to take guidance from a female engineer in a male-dominated sector, where they consider themselves superior to me for the sole reason that according to them I belong to an incompetent gender group of the community.

During this phase, I kept myself confident and motivated to persuade a much-needed change in the mindset of my team whilst not letting the work commitments to compromise. To deal with the situation, I conducted various one-on-one sessions with each member of my team, where I closely listen to their concerns and convinced them that I hold the required potential to carry out the tasks. I efficiently distributed the tasks among the team based on their skill-sets, motivated the team throughout the project phase while closely monitoring each member's contribution to the project and successfully mediated team disputes.

As a result, my team was successful to complete the project milestones within time. Our first success also helped me to change the mindset of all are the members of my team to a great extent who had doubts about my leadership qualities and engineering knowledge. Later, I was successful in completing numerous projects with the same team along with changing people's perceptions regarding female engineers until my tenure ended with the company in December 2015.

Leaders hold the potential to change the society, and I look forward to changing the negative mindset of people regarding women working in the technology sector in Pakistan. Moreover, I wish to encourage more girls to take up engineering for their prospective careers by being an example of a successful female engineer.

@Rahma155
This is a good essay.

Rahma, it is important that you summarize this 2014 experience in the presentation to the most salient points only. That way, you can show more than just leadership and influencing abilities in the essay. You can also show that you can manage to lead in the fact of adversity and obstacles thrown your way by society. By ending that presentation with the 2014 experience, then implying its continuation in 2015, you are missing out on the opportunity to show off how you developed your leadership and influencing abilities up to the present date. You can actually do better with this essay if you open with 2014 and close with either a leadership and influencing presentation from either 2016 or 2017. That way, the progression of your skills will also become evident and prove that you are capable of being a true cutting edge leader in your country upon your return. While this essay is stronger and within the prompt expectations, it can be even stronger. I want you to present the strongest essay possible. That is why I am asking you to make content and presentation adjustments.

@Holt
Thanks alot Holt for your valuable feedback. I have edited my essay as per the guidelines provided by you.

Thank you again

Dear Rahma

I really liked your essay. I am not sure what changes you have made after the comments above. My input is more on the grammar, so you will have to see whether it is still applicable in your revised essay.

Firstly, there is something wrong with the second sentence. Suggestions:

... is extremely high, further making women holding and women hold ...

OR

Being It is challenging to be a female engineer ...

Also be aware of which tense you choose (past / present) and stick to it. In paragraph 3 it would be better to keep to past tense and say *considered* and *belonged*.

Overall I liked the content of the essay very much, well done and good luck!

@Xti02
Dear Christi,

Thank you so much for your valuable feedback. I really appreciate the time you invested in correcting the grammatical errors in my essay.
This is the updated version of my essay. I hope you won't mind having a look at it. If there are any further errors, I would be grateful if you can point them out. TIA :)

I always believed that leadership offers a wide spectrum to develop, implement and persuade people towards a positive change, particularly of mindset. It is challenging to be a female engineer in Pakistan, where the gender gap on an industrial level is extremely high, and women holding a small percentage in the technology sector. The increased gender gap has made engineering termed as a 'male only' or 'male-dominated' sector, in the country. This further leads to the male counterparts contemplating female engineers to lack leadership skills.

My first leadership experience came from being promoted to supervise a team of technicians during my first job at "company name" in 2014. I was given the responsibility to supervise a team of ten technicians, where my main tasks were to lead the team while conducting site surveys and closely monitor the team's performance and work progress during the project implementation phase.

This came as a huge opportunity to enhance my leadership qualities; however, I was challenged when three members of my team refused to work under my leadership. They consider it as inappropriate to work under a woman's leadership, thus raising questions about my eligibility as an engineer and a leader. Moreover, they found it difficult to take guidance from a female engineer, where they consider themselves superior to me for the sole reason that according to them I belong to an incompetent gender group of the community.

During this phase, I kept myself motivated to persuade a much-needed change in the mindset of my team whilst not letting the work commitments to compromise. I believed in proving my competency as a leader by my actions, therefore I remained focused towards my responsibilities. I efficiently distributed the tasks among the team based on their skill-sets, motivated the team throughout the project phase and successfully mediated team disputes.

As a result, my team was successful to complete the project milestones within time. My first success helped me to change the mindset of all those people who initially had doubts about my leadership qualities. Later, I was successful in completing numerous projects with the same team until my tenure ended with the company in December 2015.

As it is very uncommon in Pakistan for a girl to work at odd locations, I encountered with another leadership challenge earlier this year during a site visit with my team at "company name" when an onlooker passed inappropriate remarks to me. This made my team members uncomfortable and distracted from work, however, being the team lead I urged them to remain focused as work completion should always remain our highest priority.

Pakistan is in an extreme need of a mindset change, as this conservative approach of the society towards women is not only widening the gender gap but also affecting the prospective careers of aspiring female engineers.

I look forward to setting an example for all the aspiring female engineers of my country by becoming a Chevening scholar, a program which inspires and empowers future leaders.

This one is a good essay, i think I will learn how to make a good essay about leadership by reading this