Leadership is totally mandatory if you want to be a great architect. CHEVENING

LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE CHEVENING

Leadership is one of the requirements needed if you want to succeed in life, but it is totally mandatory if you want to be a great architect. It is an attitude that I have had to develop since I was a child because I grew up in a very political family, and they have a great charisma and leadership in my community. I have always been attending meetings, knowing the social reality, and sharing with all kind of people. Besides, I thank God for the fact that I have had the opportunity to develop this quality throughout my student and professional life as I will explain below.

I could say that I have been fortunate enough to be part of teams with good communication and listening skills. This is something that has facilitated my growth path within these teams. A clear example is the Leo Club in my town, Comendador; a club in which I was one of the young founders and where I learned protocols to lead teams of different ages and with a variety of thoughts but with the same goal: putting our grain of sand for our community growth. I was part of these club from 2004 until 2007.

Given the fact that knowledge has to be put into practice, during the time I have worked in different companies and have been in different positions I have tried to demonstrate the skills learned since my childhood. A sample of this is my first job as a receptionist in the Dominican Medical Association, in which after a few months, I was promoted to one of the most complex departments of this institution in the position of assistant of administration, in other words, the second in command in the department, I managed to lead the team. This same way has happened in all the jobs in which I have worked. I have demonstrated my delivery, capacity and leadership.

In the architectural field, I have had the opportunity to lead 3 projects as a freelancer where I was the director and had absolute control over the staff (electricians, plumbers, bricklayers, etc.) Regardless of the nature of the projects, all of them culminated in a successful way for everyone.

At the moment, in my work, I have had to make an effort to be able to manage some situations and to attain the respect from the staff to be acknowledged as the person in charge. This is due to the fact that the majority of workers are older and on many occasions more experienced in construction than me. At present, in spite of it, I think I have succeeded

ANA MARGARITA PAULINO

Hi Ana,

The first two paragraphs seem redundant. You may want to focus on the last three and detail out what activities, especially in leading a team to resolve a work-related problem, lead you to achieve the rapid promotion and/or what did you do to gain the respect if the older staff?

Just mentioning that you had attained it does not show your skill as a leader. The process is important to express the skill clearly.

Ana, as I keep telling the current crop of Chevening applicants, you are wasting the time of the reviewer by defining what leadership means to you. That is a waste of his reading time and your word count. A definition is not required because you must prove that you "embody" or "personify" the traits of a potential future leader and influencer in your country. Unfortunately, your essay just enumerated these points rather than proving it via specific instances. Actually, you need only one instant of influencing and leadership in your presentation. Not several as you have presented at the moment.

Now, you indicate that you come from a political family, this has allowed you to become a community leader of sorts with a specific type of leadership and influencing traits used when dealing with local or national organizations within your neighborhood or city. Perhaps you have some local government influence and leading skills to discuss in this section. Do you believe that you have ample experience to speak of in this aspect? If you do, then I strongly urge you to use the political implication for this essay as that shows a clear national or local leadership and influencing skill that can be developed for future use. Just remember though, it has to be a recent development in order to be effective in your presentation. Nothing more than 2 years old for increased consideration. Something that happened within the year would be best.

The Leo club is too far back and academic in scope for it to be relevant to your current leadership skills. You don't need to show the development of the skills, you need to show how you use your developed skills instead.

Being a receptionist is too lowly a position to use as an example. It will not impress the reviewer at all. Specially since your promotion to admin staff does not indicate a true leadership or influencing reference.

Your other option here would be your freelance projects as an architect. Pick you most problematic project and explain how you overcame the leadership and influencing difficulties. That would work just as well as your political experience.

I have presented you with the options for your topic in the revised essay. Do not use all of the suggested scenarios. Pick the one that will give you the strongest chance to highlight all your leadership and influencing skills based on a positive and notable outcome of your actions. That will most likely be your most competitive leadership and influencing essay that you can present to the reviewer.