Uniting people around shared ideas and delivering results - Chevening leadership and influence

Can you please help with any suggestions on content relevance? Really appreciate any suggestions that will help me improve this essay. Thanks!

LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE QUESTION

Chevening is looking for individuals who 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.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

I firmly believe in the philosophy of "Servant Leadership" - a dynamic style of leadership that embodies the commitment to building strong and trusting relationships to unite people around shared ideas and deliver positive results. Being a former athlete (cricketer) and coach, I always strive to create a culture at my workplace that allows subordinates, colleagues and team members to freely express themselves as this helps build trust and makes us committed to each others success. This spirit of collaboration, ability to adapt and innovate, and the life-long commitment to learning are key leadership practices that have helped me a lot to inspire and mobilize my team and to ultimately get things done!

In my current capacity as US Program Manager for ....................... (a non-profit that runs an extremely competitive global health fellowship in the US and Africa), I have been playing a key role in supporting all our partners in Washington DC through regular check-in calls, site-visits and professional development support to our fellows placed at these organizations for a year. Managing these relationships has helped me acquire considerable skills in providing mentorship on how fellows can maximize their impact at their placement organizations while making the best out of a time-bound experience to launch their careers in global health.

In my previous position as a Program Manager for Student Athlete Development at ...................... in Washington DC, I worked extensively on strengthening partnerships with key personnel at partner universities to recruit & train Division-I college athletes for our HIV/AIDS educational programs in DC based public schools. As a direct outcome of my leadership, we were able to successfully recruit and train a record 180 volunteer athletes in a calendar year and engage them in community development activities through our various programs.

Prior to that, as a Manager for .................................. in India (a 360° sports company with interests in Sports Infrastructure, Sports Technologies, Sports Academies, Sports Advisory, Intellectual Properties & Rights Management), I was responsible for sourcing and analyzing partner needs to establish a customer-intimate business environment as well as resolve complex issues for our coaches and client schools thereby strengthening partnerships for our sports education programs. During my time here, a major leadership success for me was conceptualizing and implementing a comprehensive fitness challenge for schools focused on testing health related fitness indicators for over 3000 kids across various regions in India.

As a result of these experiences and the positive outcomes I have achieved so far I am confident that my personal values, goals and passion for leadership development are now in perfect alignment with the philosophy that I deeply believe in.

Imran, you have a very impressive leadership background. It is so impressive that you have a very strong chance of being considered for the scholarship. The only problem is, the scholarship essay is titled "leadership and influencing" so you cannot win the scholarship solely on your leadership resume alone. It would be in the best interest of your essay if you choose the more noteworthy accomplishment of the work presentations you have made and build a proper essay around it that balances your leadership abilities with your influencing skills. For more applicants, the most recent work experience is the most applicable one to the prompt. In this instance however, since you have so much relevant leadership experience, I will leave that choice up to you. The reviewer is not interested in reading about your work history. He just wants you to prove that you know how to handle pressure situations in the workplace in your capacity as a leader in the company. Handling pressure situations requires 2 movements from the employee, a leadership ability and an influencing style that will help to steer the team towards the proper completion of a project or resolution of a conflict situation.