Regarding the leadership and influence essay in the Chevening scholarship

to be able to be more influencial

I believe that "Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile" as Vince Lombardi said.

Throughout the life there are many chances to experience leadership and my leadership development process started at a very young age because I was the eldest of my siblings, so my parents were always trying to implant the leadership idea into my head.

When I was in primary school, there was a vote to choose the leader of the class and I had been chosen as I've been known as a leader in the school. Moreover, I was responsible for arranging the trips with the school administration on behalf of my colleagues.

When I was eighteen, my father left us without saying so I had to take the responsibilities to be the family leader since I've been the eldest of my siblings, I tried my best to make them feel that it's not the end and we will survive. Moreover, I was working and studying at the same time despite that I got high marks in high school so that influenced my siblings to study hard after being disappointed and I kept encouraging them.

now I'm the cashier at a restaurant and once the owner started to lose money and we were not selling a lot and because of that the owner didn't have enough money to pay the staff salaries. I started to convince them that we have to wait and we can't leave the restaurant in such time and they agreed.

Once upon a time, one of university teachers was insulting us in the lecture for doing nothing but, my colleagues were afraid of telling the dean. I entered the dean's office and told her about anything. Two months later he did the same action but, this time they told the dean without being afraid because at the first time I encouraged them to do it.

I believe that getting the chevening scholarship would make me able to make much influence and it would promote my leadership and influence skills so I can use these skills to develope my country.

Khaled, I like the fact that you attempted to create something at least. But your entire essay seems out of sync in a way. You might want to consider restructuring it.

Hi Khaled, I think its good to write some backgrounds of College as you did, but your focus must be your professional experience. I suggest you to insert more situations of your professional experience that explain your leadership and Influence skills.

Hi Khaled. Appreciate you for being responsible towards your family, but I think the Chevening leadership essay is more about how you demonstrated your leadership skills in the academic and professional setting. More often than not, people would do something for their family, but when you reach out to the community, that's when you've done something recognizable for social development. I think you might want to add a bit of that in your essay. Good luck!

Khaled, you have some pretty impressive leadership lessons learned along the way of your life. However, those are not truly effective in the essay because it is not in a professional setting. The influencing story about your time as a cashier though, that shows your potential to be a leader and influencer. Why don't you build on that experience instead? So the restaurant was going to be shut down. You convinced the owner not to do it. How did you do that? What changes did you initiate in the restaurant with his support that led to a positive outcome for the restaurant? I am assuming that the restaurant did not end up closing? That is the kind of leadership and influencing essay that you could present in this essay. You could tie in your life experiences with the reasons why you choose to lead people or influence them in a certain way. You don't have to throw away your personal story if you can find a way to tie it into your professional setting.

Khaled - As once aspiring chevening applicant to another, I would say that I found your second draft to be a lot better. Just wanted to make one quick suggestion -

Introducing your role as a leader in primary school early on in the essay may not be a good way to catch the reviewer's attention. As the chevening scholarship is looking for folks with leadership potential in their home countries, I would suggest starting off with the most recent professional leadership example first as this will probably be your most powerful example based on the experiences over the course of several years of life lessons.

Thanks and good luck!

@Khaled Ebrahim
You have developed some leadership skills as shown in your essay. However, your revised essay does not sufficiently explain what the prompt requires. As pointed out by Holt, your leadership skills as the eldest among your siblings, at your primary school or during your undergraduate days are not applicable here. What's needed is your leadership skills on a professional basis. So you could write more about your job as a cashier at a restaurant, which is a role where some leadership and influencing skills comes to play. Explain how you lead people under you, the problems encountered and how you used your leadership skills to solve them, how you influenced those working with you and so on. With about two to three paragraphs, you may have been able to explain these.

I wish you best of luck!