I'm a Russian journalist who is applying for Chevening Scholarship this year

Chevening leadership essay

This is my first draft, please kindly help me to improve my essay. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!

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.(500 words max)

Books teach us to dream big but dream is not enough to become something bigger: it is important to possess certain traits to be a good leader. I believe that during the years of studies and work I acquired these very traits.

As a leader, I understand the importance of teamwork and ensure that every voice is heard. In university, I took part in competition for Potanin Scholarship where students participated in games designed to unlock their potential. All people were mixed in random groups that constantly changed. When the event started, most of the students tried to be independent players. On contrary, I tried to build a team out of every group I joined and achieve the best result altogether. The competition continued till noon and then jury suddenly announced that during the second part students would form groups and chose captains by themselves. While many people struggled to find partners, I had an excellent team within minutes. And even though I was a captain, every opinion was heard and mattered. As a result, not only I won the scholarship, but also two of my teammates.

Moreover, I am passionate about my community and always ready to "go beyond". This summer I volunteered to read a lecture on science writing at the Summer Media School. On the way to classroom one of the organizers mentioned that their students were working on a newspaper project and offered me to have a look. When I ran through the pages, I noticed that the there was a place for improvement. After a lecture I asked whether the group wanted to discuss their project. Students were really excited about an offer. We started from the basics and over the next hour created a list of changes that could be made to improve the newspaper. Eventually, the group decided to redo some sheets and introduce new formats like opinion pieces. This turned out to be an important step for their project, and these students still use strategies we worked on together.

I have also developed high sense of commitment to everything I do. This spring I went to the International Science Journalism School, where I met professionals from different parts of the world, including science communicators from my home country. I decided to use this opportunity to improve quality of our work. There has been a long-standing problem with content distribution: press-releases were often published significantly later than the scientific articles which made them uninteresting for news writers. We organized a discussion with colleagues, and I advised them to pay attention to timing in order to increase press attention to their work. When we returned home, they started to send press-releases earlier which made possible to cover them.

My experience shaped me in many ways and encouraged me to set big goals. One of them is to become Chevening Scholar because it will help me to acquire necessary knowledge to become a good leader and contribute effectively to development of my country.

(498 words)

Lerour, after reading your leadership essay, I think you should remove your experience at University. You'd better expand your story at work and show your leadership skills to solve the problem you have. On the third and fourth paragraph, I couldn't see how you really use your leadership skills. Its not impressive enough to show your leadership skills as a leader, I think it's because of your position on the story is not as a leader (?). I suggest you to write the situation where you could be a leader and use your leadership skills to manage your team

Thank you so much for your point of view, I will review my essay once again based on it!
I would also like to ask @Holt to kindly comment on my essay. Thank you very much!

Kristina, I am going to be completely honest with you here and tell you that this is not a leadership and influencing essay. You accidentally wrote a personal statement, which has nothing to do with your leadership and influencing potential. It feels like I am reading an essay that simply narrates your academic background rather than justifying your professional leadership and influencing abilities. The essay itself is weak because of that missing discussion. You have not provided an essay that can be considered a leadership and influencing essay.

There are other applicants for the scholarship in this cycle that are properly and professionally qualified to go back to their countries to continue to lead and influence their countrymen towards a positive development. I suggest that you use one of your recent news articles to help signify that. Your capacity as a journalist provides you a unique opportunity to lead and influence people using your words, don't waste the opportunity to prove that to the reviewer. However, you cannot use an academic article written in college, you need to use a currently published article in the publication of your choice. You stand to have an extremely strong leadership and influencing essay if you can just properly focus the essay on a relevant presentation.