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The
leadership questions usually come in two forms: the kind
that ask about your "leadership style," and the kind
that ask you to discuss a "leadership situation." You
should not try to use a single essay to address both
questions, because they require different emphases. The
first question asks you to describe principles that
define your approach to leadership. You should then back
these principles up with evidence of how you've applied
them.
The second question wants you to focus on a single
experience (or in some cases two experiences). For these
essays your first objective is to flesh out the details
of the situation and the contributions you made. You
must tell an in-depth, engaging story before you even
worry about the insights and lessons you deduce. Then,
when you get to that stage, your insights into
leadership should be focused on the story you just told.
Don't stray too far and try to include everything you
know about leadership.
After this basic difference in emphasis, the goals of
both essays are essentially the same and include the
following:
1.
Describe your strengths honestly. You don't have
to give much attention to weaknesses or even discuss
them explicitly (though if you can mention plans for
improvement, that can be very effective). The point
here is to show a clear awareness of your personal
strengths, as opposed to pretending to be the best
at everything. Taking the latter approach will
suggest that you only know the cliches of
leadership, but don't have a genuine understanding
of how to exercise it in real life.
2. Avoid oversimplified principles. You most
likely won't have anything entirely new to say, but
you can still avoid stating the obvious. Again, the
best approach is to stay specific and personal. You
might, for example, combine two straightforward
principles and show how you've combined them
effectively.
3. Show growth. One way to avoid having to
cite the obvious is instead to show through examples
how you came to understand a particular lesson. Your
readers are interested in how you've developed and
matured. Start off by indicating your uncertainty,
and then frame your newly learned principles not as
conclusions to share with the reader but as an
integral part of the story's arc.
4. Illustrate your personal qualities. In
addition to conveying your own strong understanding
of how to lead, you should also indicate to the
reader the valuable qualities you have cultivated
for that task. These can include communication,
collaborative, organizational, and problem-solving
skills, as well as personal characteristics like
inspiration, initiative, responsibility, and vision.
As always, there's no point in simply naming these
qualities as ones you possess. You must show them
through example.
This applicant focuses
his first six paragraphs on the details of his project
and the roles he played. He includes specific duties
such as the following: "My role was specific: develop a
strategy to improve navigation, communicate the complete
range of ADP's products and services, optimize the flow
of traffic to drive leads for the business segments,
persuade visitors to purchase ADP products and services
online, and create a platform for ADP's evolving
E-business strategy." Because he focuses on concrete
examples, he does not need to tell us about his ability
to strategize or communicate. We can deduce for
ourselves the kinds of skills he shows in his work.
In his conclusion, the writer avoids citing generic
cliches about leadership and instead focuses on
practical lessons learned. There are implicit broader
principles behind those lessons, but it's more important
that we see how he has applied them to his specific
case. For example, "the importance of matching corporate
strategy to Internet strategy" speaks essentially to the
importance of aligning goals, which applies to all
leadership situations.
This applicant relies a
little too heavily on generalized insights into
leadership. He draws on one concrete example in the
second paragraph, however, and this makes a great
difference. The best way to demonstrate leadership
ability is not to write vaguely about your success in
completing projects or motivating people. Instead, name
an example of a problem you faced and led the way in
overcoming, or mention a person whose support you earned
after initial difficulties. Leadership is a quality that
everyone will enthusiastically claim, but few will have
the proper strategy in supporting that assertion. |
