Leadership through working in a pharmaceutical company - Chevening application essay

hello I'm applying for chevening scholarship and I appreciate your suggestions on both the grammar and the content of the assay :

Chevening is looking for individuals that will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries , explain how you meet these requirements using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answers : min 50 , max 500

It was Shortly after graduation in March 2014 when I started working at Hikma Pharmaceutical a leading multinational company and is the largest pharmaceutical company in the MIddle east and North Africa region ( MENA) ,this was a turning point in my understanding for the true meaning behind the word leadership , many people associate leadership with having authority , however having the privilege to work with great managers who displayed leadership qualities has inspired to become a leader myself .

It's Through hardships that greatness is born , as a new regulatory affairs officer in the company I was still getting used to my assigned duties , which aims to make sure that our products comply with authorities regulations and maintain marketing license while ensuring complying with shipping regulations , Unfortunately at that time we had big issues in shipping to Sudanese Market due to allegedly non complying packages costing the company huge loss accounts for about 16 million dollars , in addition my teammate who was responsible for the this Market had transferred to another department leaving an important role that I had to fill in . It was quite hard at first and daunting , but With one thought in mind determined to succeed along with all the encouragement and motivation from my manager I managed to create a data base in creating to organizing shipping issues , working hand in hand with purchasing and design we managed the issue and succeeded to control , after that I saw the importance in sharing my experience in handling shipping issues with my Teammates and without being asked to I arranged for a training session for the whole team as I believe that part of leadership resides in sharing knowledge and providing support for your colleagues .

Due to the success that I have demonstrated handling shipping issues previously , our senior management decided to hand me a highly rated project " packaging unification across MENA" , that would minimize costs , errors enhancing the overall packaging process for our products through having a unified packaging for every product across the various MENA destinations , this proved to be tricky since every country has unique regulations . I was the project leader leading 10 of my teammates despite having no formal authority, the major obstacle that I faced was that regulations differs between countries and in order to deal with this problem I decided to split the team into three regions ( Africa , Gcc , LEVANT) and asked them to summaries the packaging requirements and this way we were able to have a clear consolidated plan to apply in our packages to make sure it complies with all the countries , moreover I had to conduct regular weekly meetings in order to keep the team motivated and to remind them with the importance of this project to our company also opening the space for suggestions and ideas , i used the the same approach when I noticed that we weren't getting enough cooperation from the other departments such as Design , marketing and supply chain and in order to solve this I arranged for several meetings where we discussed the project from different points leading finally to adopt a well structured action plan , approach was taken requirements, action plan , till date we have succeeded in unifying three of our top lines which is considered a great achievement at this point .

To conclude , I think Leadership is all about motivating people inspiring them to be better , Chevening scholarship will provide me with a unique opportunity to pursue my dream of studying in the UK contributing to further build on my leadership skills , as a future leader upon my return to Jordan I will devote myself to creating new leaders , as sadly the world today has enough followers and we are in desperate need for future leaders .

Looking forward for your suggestions

Hanan, the immediate problem that I found with your work is that you have a problem when it comes to using capital letters. It seems like you are not familiar with the grammar rules surrounding it's use. The grammar instruction is that capital letters are to be used for the first letter in every word after a period. This signifies the start of a new sentence. Capital letters are also used when mentioning a person, place, title, and other similar things. Throughout your essay you have either capitalized the first and second word in a sentence or not capitalized the word that needed to be capitalized at all. Please review your essay for those mistakes and correct them within the same essay.

There is also the question of your influencing your co-workers to do what needed to be done. The concentration that you placed upon your leadership skill left the essay wanting in terms of proving your ability to positively influence your group. There has to be some sort of reference to you having a difficult time getting the group to do something but through the proper influencing skill, you were able to gain their cooperation. I think you can do that in the 3rd paragraph where you discuss the lack of cooperation between departments. Instead of focusing on how you called a meeting to resolve the issue, explain how you called the members to a discussion (instead of a meeting) where you influenced them to work together for the good of the team. Develop a paragraph to this effect in order to further solidify your image as an influential leader in your workplace.

While others will tell you that leadership and influence are one and the same, I will explain to you that they are not because a leader, does not leave room for error or advice and expects his orders to be followed as best as possible. A person who can influence, knows how to use other people's ideas to get the job done, encourages team work where there is none, and gives credit the performing group whenever it is due. That is how you influence cooperation in a team that does not get along.

The additional critique that I have of your essay is that the grammar is badly in need of work. The improper sentence structure and word usage often left me reading unclear sentences and paragraphs. However, because of the situation with the content of the essay that needs to be addressed, I would rather that we save the final editing after all content adjustments and proof-reading have been completed. I look forward to your revised essay :-)

Thank you so much Louisa, I will do my best to bring my influence skills in paragraph 3 . Additionally I will take your notes concerning capitalizing and try to improve the grammar as much as I can .

Here is my updated leadership essay for your kind side to have a look at :)

My prospective for the true meaning of leadership blossomed during my time working at Hikma Pharmaceuticals ...

There are definitely notable improvements in this revised essay Hanan. It made the essay much more informative and solid than the previous one. All points that used to be unclear are now resolved. You did a pretty good job on your own. Now, I would like to jump in with further editing of your essay so that it can finally find its polished and usable version :-)

My prospective for the true meaning DEFINITION of leadership blossomed during my time working at Hikma Pharmaceuticals , which is the largest pharmaceutical company in the Middle East and North AfricaN region . Throughout my THE experience and the challenges that I faced , I began to implementED the leadership skills that I acquired OVER TIME. BY THIS POINT IN MY CAREER, I HAD ALREADY COME TO REALIZE realizing the tremendous effect that positive leadership and influence can have on the people within the department and the company as a whole .

As a new employee in my role as a Regulatory Affairs officer still getting used to my assigned duties . , I faced my first challenge when I had to fill in for one of the key members who transferred to another department, at that time . I had to deal with shipping issues which took a huge toll on our company . At first I was really nervous and discouraged AT FIRST but having a wonderful manager at my side whom I consider to be more of a mentor who kept me on the track by TEACHING AND believing in me . My manager 's guidance had a terrific NOTABLE impact on me in terms of not only succeeding in tackling the shipping problems but also becoming the most experienced team member in REGARDING such issues. , t Therefore I arranged to conduct CONDUCTED a training session for my teammates in order to share my experience and help empower them .

Shortly afterwards and u Upon the decision of our senior management I was THEN assigned as a leader for a highly important project which aims for tor having THAT AIMED TO CREATE a unified packaging that complies COMPLIANT with several markets across the region which will THAT resultED in minimizing costs and efforts . Despite DUE TO the fact that having different regulations EXISTED FOR EACH specific for each market , I was able NEEDED to organize this issue REGULATIONS FOR EASIER IMPLEMENTATION by dividing my teammates into three teams according to regions . I asking ASKED them to summaries SUMMARIZE THE regulations in their region , therefore making it easier identifying TO IDENTIFY the differences and building a clear action plan based on the similarities . Now that things were settled within our department only thing left was to deal with external department.

The main obstacle that I faced as a project leader was the lack of cooperation between the external departments represented by marketing , design and supply chain . I knew by then that the only solution would be through using the art of influence POSITIVELY INFLUENCING THE GROUP. , therefore I saw the need in conducting TO CONDUCT a discussion involving the aforementioned departments. At the beginning of the discussion there was a lot of criticism and negative energy , . I figured out that instead of giving orders and directions , it was better to ask questions leading the teams in TO providing PROVIDE ideas and suggestions , and . s]/S] Since it was their ideas they completely changed their approach to a more positive " we can do it " attitude, in addition , conducting the importance of the project for our company along with expressing appreciation for the teams has proved to be very successful as till date we managed to unify three of our top lines .

Overall , my experience has taught me valuable lessons about leadership and positive influence. It's through having the opportunity of being a Chevening scholar that I intend to strengthen my leadership skills and use them in the pharmaceutical industry helping in creating future leaders .