Leadership Essay Example [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

1. 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. (minimum word count: 50 words, maximum word count: 500 words) For me, leadership is an action in leading myself and others towards common goals. Leadership must begin within me before I can lead the others. A good leader must have integrity to his commitment, be open-minded to changes, and know where to go. During my undergraduate, I led an event division in the Christian Society in my faculty for six months. I worked with four co-workers and we were responsible for organising weekly services. For me, doing a voluntary work is the way I contribute to the community and hence, I dedicated extra 23 hours per day to ensure that we did a great work. Although the division was small, at the beginning there were a lot of internal problems where there was a disagreement between my coworkers. Realising the potential damages it might cause, I tried to mediate them by personal communication. It was challenging because this was my first time dealing with people with egocentric personalities. Nonetheless I was sure that as a leader, I should be able to lead others to reach for the good of our society. Eventually, by intensifying the communication I was able to reconcile them. My involvement in the Christian Society did not end there. After stepping down from the event division, I was given a new challenge to organise an annual retreat event. The previous events were less effective because there were too many activities. Learning from the past, I decided that changes were necessary. Although I managed to convince the other committee members about the changes, it was initially difficult to persuade the senior member of this society, who was resistant to the changes. It was even more difficult considering that she was also a lecturer in my university where seniority was an issue. However, the success of the event was more important to me and hence I brought up my opinions in several discussions with her. At the beginning, my proposal was rejected and modified many times, but I did not stop communicating with her because an organisation should be able to open to new and fresh ideas and give opportunities to apply them. Finally, after numerous efforts I managed to obtain her approval and executed the proposed changes. As a result, the event was more successful than the previous ones and the changes were kept implemented. In conclusion, I am confident that I have leadership qualities. I demonstrated it by my commitment in organisations, by mediating co-workers, and by communicating with people during difficult situations for the sake of achieving a goal. I enjoy working in organisations but at the same time conflicts of interests may be inevitable. When they happen, it is the occasion where my leadership qualities are tested. However, a leader is a person who always learns and keeps improving. I regard my experiences as a learning process and believe that in the future, I can be a better leader than I am now.

Comment [SBS1]: Please explain a bit more about this in 2 more sentences. Think about the reason behind your statement, also how do you think you can be a good leader?