Leadership is a quality that has always been present in my life. Chevening.

Essay for the Chevening Scholarship - Leadership

Leadership is a quality that has always been present in my life. Both of my parents are pastors at my church, and my older sisters are prominent figures as well. Their lives are an example of morality and Cristian values that people consider worthy to follow. This has led me to believe that leadership is only accomplished by example and the improvement of our society.

For almost five years I have been involved with an organization that works for the betterment of people in poverty, sexual prevention, and organic feminine hygiene. My purpose of working here is to help as many people as I possibly can, and a way to accomplish this mission is by getting others involved.

Last year I was in charge of coordinating a campaign to raise money for the communities in the Andes of Perú, who were being stricken by extreme low weather. This was my first time being in charge of an event of that magnitude.

Soon I learned that most people won't donate time and resources to something that won't profit them, but despite the inconveniences, my team and I manage to surpass our expectations. It required a lot of work and an excellent communication system, which I consider to be one of the top skills a leader could have, that consisted of benefit dinners, social media campaigns, and public relationships.

At the time I was set to travel to the first community, I was told we were going accompanied by two members of one of our sponsors, which were two women above the age of 40. This was their first trip to the Andes, which is at five thousand meters above sea level. It's safe to say, it wouldn't be an easy trip for them.

When we were at first community, the night came along with freezing cold, and we were set to sleep on the floor of an old shack, the two newest members insisted we should go back to the cars and go ahead to the city, this was impossible since we were 6 hours away and there was no clear route.

I explained how difficult it would be for us to go back, so I took part of the quilts we were going to donate, accommodate them on the floor and prepare "rustic" beds for the voluntaries. It was a freezing night, with no electricity or water; nonetheless, I tried my best to comfort my team until everyone fell asleep. That night, I took it upon myself to ensure they would be safe and warm, which kept me awake the entirety of the time.

This is one of the times I have felt I have embodied what it means to be a good leader, since helping those in need is the best influence one can project to their community.

I believe the Chevening scholarship will help me boost my potential and will challenge my abilities to promote real change in my country, through the learning of new communicational skills.

Valeria, remove the references to your family leadership traits and explanation. The reviewer is not interested in that. Start immediately with a presentation of your community project instead. Include the name of the project, the inclusive dates of the project and the location. Now, paragraph 4 should be removed from this presentation as well as this refers more to your networking skills rather than your leadership and influencing traits.

I feel that this leadership and influencing essay is not very strong in the sense of professional leadership. This incident is based more on an adventure than an actual problem that required resolution using leadership and influencing abilities. The whole story is so gentle and mild that it will not stand up to a comparison test with another applicant who has had to lead and inspire his team during far more trying times within the performance of their tasks. Perhaps you can shift to a professional narrative instead that shows more of a strength of character, resolve in your beliefs, and empathy for your team that you used to lead and influence them to keep going until the project or objectives were completed?

Thanks for the feedback, I will definitely work on it.