Dear friends,
I'm applying for a Scholarship for the first time and would really appreciate your help and comments. Thank you very much in advance.
Leadership and Influence Question
Chevening is looking for individuals that will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.
I never really saw myself as a leader untill i began to have responsibilities thrown at me, and from my experiences i can boldly say that i have developed certain leadership skills because people are not born to be leaders rather people build leadership skills overtime through experience, hardwork and dedication.
I discovered overtime that i inspire and motivate people for example, during the senior years of my undergraduate program i found that i had become Tutor and coach to my junior colleages. They came to me because they were impressed and motivated by my style and technique of painting and also the method i used to relay the process and technique to them, and i was always glad to carry them along because it came with a certain feeling of accomplishment. As a result, most of these students became very good in painting at an early level and some even began to paint in styles relatable to mine.
Leadership i believe is serving, according to john maxwell, leadership is not about titles and positions or flowcharts, its about ones life influencing another. During my undergraduate program in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), i served as the secretary general in the association of fine and applied arts students (AFAAS) and during my service year i organized and coordinated committee meetings, i tried my best to encourage participation from members for the development of the department and also effectively disseminated information to students via whatsapp, facebook or word of mouth. Serving in this capacity was one of my best experiences in the university because above other reasons it didn't hinder me from finishing as the best graduating student in my class .
I agree with andrea walker who said leadership is the ability to see problems and be the solution, seeing problems as challenges and rising to the challenge. In the known history of my department certain student union administration choose a particular social project in for a certain year, but when it got to our turn i opted for us to embark on three social projects; an excursion, an art exhibition and a student carnival. Although it was a very difficult task but with the co ordination of the right people, the leveraging of certain networking skills and above all perseverace even in the eyes of failure, the projects were seen to completion and the students benefitted a great deal from it.
innovation as an attribute of a good leader comes naturally to me. Innovation here is a change in the customary way of doing things. As painting majors in the fine arts department of UNN, we were expected to develope our own style of art which was totally different from the norm, hence innovation was to be detected in all aspects of our art. Having gone through this experience, i have grown to always be inclined to develope new ideas and be ahead of current thinking.
