My leadership role and competencies for Chevening

Leadership and Influence Essay

As part of my degree, I was required to lead a team of five on an engineering company finance project. It became clear as we progressed that one of our members was inactive and this resulted in several conflicts. As the team leader, I was responsible for resolving the conflict, ensuring prompt completion of the project, ensuring participation of all members, and helping the group score top marks. I organized a private meeting with the inactive member to find out his reasons. I held an open dialogue team meeting in which everyone explained his or her point without interruption. This led to a group realization of each member's struggles, and thus promoted better understanding. At the end of the meeting, I gave final instructions which incorporated something from everyone's points and re-delegated work according to every member's present capability emphasizing the need for compromise. I also highlighted how much better all our grades would look if we did well. This made everyone happier and more productive, and our project was completed on time with all members contributing. We obtained a first-class grade (71%).

In my role as CAD Engineer at Sherman Gray, I was required to lead two others on a marketing strategy project which faced significant work backlog. Team members were finding it difficult to gather relevant information on the target market which consisted of university students and young professionals. As the team leader, it was my responsibility to ensure we met our deadline and presented a good marketing strategy to the manager. I spoke to friends and contacts in engineering companies and universities around the local area, about the possibility of a discussion on training opportunities with them and their colleagues. Three out of five agreed, and we were able to conduct a survey of hundred students and thirty young professionals in the space of three days. As a result, we gathered enough information to complete our presentation on time and our work drew commendation from the manager.

Whilst at university I also served as a pioneering Training and communications manager at Robogals Exeter. At the start of my role, the organization was in dire need of volunteers. It was my responsibility to grow and train our volunteer base. I publicized robogals in person and on social media with a focus on the effect robogals has had on the life and career choices of school kids, and the incredible feats former robogals volunteers at other universities have gone on to achieve. This resulted in more interest in robogals from intending volunteers and led to my signing up of forty volunteers within the first year.

These are evidence of leadership and influence skills which I intend to use in mentoring incoming scholars, and promoting Chevening scholarships and fellowships whilst on the Chevening programme. I also plan on setting up a support team for the Solar Technologies Project in Nigeria and gather support for other projects in line with UK priorities in my country as a Chevening Alumni.

Hi Bennett,
This essay is an impressive one. However I would suggest you to move the last paragraph as the first one. You can mention about your plan to set up a support team in line with UK priorities and so on to attract the attention of the reviewer, and then you can say "I believe I have the capacity for this as I possess the following leadership and influence skills", and so on.

This is just my opinion, I am also working on my submission, but I'm sure we can help each other. Good luck!

Bennett, your essay requires only one academic and one professional representation of your leadership and influencing skills. Starting off with your college experience is good. While your leadership skill is well illustrated, your ability to motivate the team isn't as effective because you do not appear to be highly active in influencing the mindset of the team from being inactive to active. Therefore you need to better discuss how you motivated the team. Less use of "we" and more use of "I" in reference to getting the team to move towards the completion of the project.

Your professional experience makes your leadership role sound very easy and conflict free. So there is no real depiction of the need to influence others in your paragraphs either. It would be better if you could discuss how your talk with the other contacts went and what lengths you had to go to in order to convince them to allow your team to conduct the survey. That will help to explain your influencing skills in an evolved manner.

The paragraphs about being a training and communications manager is more of a networking reference so it should be removed from this essay. Your last paragraph belongs in the post study plan so you have to move that reference to the correct essay discussion. Overall, your essay shows potential but lacks information. Just improve on the points I mentioned and everything should be good to go for your essay.