Subject on Future Leaders - applying for the Chevening Scholarship

My most revered exemplary leadership model is the former South African president Nelson Mandela aside sharing birth date with me, his selfless exemplary leadership and commitment to fight apartheid rule at the cost of spending 27years in prison modeled true leadership to me. Notably was his decline to run a second term but rather chose to focus on charitable work and combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the Nelson Mandela Foundation. This goes to buttress the point that leadership is about influence.

My first shot at leadership was serving in the position of the General Secretary of the Christian Lawyers' Fellowship of Nigeria (CLASFON) in the University of Nigeria. Here I was opportune to inspire and mentor some law students in my faculty in extra curriculum activities for their academic, social and spiritual well-being. I co-championed moot activities depicting legal scenarios, organized tutorial classes, seminars and led my team to intercity conferences. This tremendously increased the number of students that signed up to CLASFON membership, consequently awakening a sense of individual social responsibility to students in the faculty. These hands on experience exposed me to people management and the skill of multi-tasking.

My associate role at Banji Alabi & Co partly demands I manage clients and junior colleagues while doing my job. My penchant for strategy thinking and execution is always brought to book in case development and management (constant interface between procedural and substantive law) inuring from my leadership skills.

I believe leadership skills extend beyond our professional capacity or areas to the society, that is why I am actively involved in a foundation (E-Circle foundation) which trains and mentors young ladies in line with their talents and skills and consequently deploying them it. Through E-Circle foundation I was able to mentor female students of the University of Lagos in the right values in life, personal branding, professional life and sometimes providing internship opportunities fro them.

With all these leadership skills and the desire to develop into a gear leader, Chevening Scholarship will assist me to learn from the best and use those skills to influence my society.

Hi Blutches

Although you have a lot of great achievements I personally think that this essay is a bit bland and isn't much beyond a resume list. I would personally would like to see you revise your essay by integrating Nelson Mandela's into the rest of your essay. Other than the first part of the essay, Mandela's reference really serves no purpose.

I would recommend that you search a little deeper into your leadership, beyond what you did and into how it assures that you will be a future leader. Turn this into your thesis statement.

Also as a side note please watch your run on sentences and eliminate phrases like 'aside sharing a birthday with me'. These phrases are a bit distracting and sidetrack the essay and your point.

Blossom, the first thing you have to do is totally remove the reference to Nelson Mandela. While he may have inspired your desire to become a leader and you may even look to him as your earliest mentor in this case, his presence in the essay is not required because there is no direct connection between him inspiring you to become a leader and the leader that you have become.

Now, in order to make this essay more focused and in the process effective, we will need to delete other parts of the essay that only represent a minor role or presence in your development as a leader or as a representative of your leadership and influence skills. I am referring to the now existing paragraph 2 of your essay. I feel that because it reveals a role of leadership while you were in college, it does not carry the same impact and influence upon the reviewer. The academic leadership roles are usually confined to a controlled environment and thus, has limitations in the way that you can develop your leadership skills. Your associate role at the law firm though, now that is a truly impressive leadership role that you should consider developing even further.

The essay will really come across as stronger if you concentrate on developing the 2 main requirements of a Chevening scholarship. That of presenting a clear example of your leadership skills (the associate position at the law firm) and your influence skills (E- Circle foundation). These are the two most concrete examples of how you currently embody the leadership potential that the scholarship is looking for and therefore, should be the main content of your essay.