Quantum Leadership: Advancing Innovation - Admission/Application Essay Example

Having a character of leadership is the foundation of an effective leader and therefore leaders need the knowledge and skills required in order to perform on those principles and values.

            An event or a situation that demonstrates the effectiveness of a leader and how the situation shaped my conception of a leader is when I joined Virginia Governor’s School in summer 2011. We were grouped into 5 person team, in which we were supposed to work on an assignment together, and at the end of the assignment, our work was acknowledged by the administration and professors in terms of; how we efficiently approached and completed the task on time. I was put into a group of four guys namely: Steven, William, Jonathan, and Clarke. Our first assignment was a background research paper, in which we decided that we should all write a paragraph in order to finish the assignment. However, when we met to finalize the assignment, only I and Steve had written our paragraphs and hence I decided to take up the leadership position in order to control the group to work on a common goal of getting a good grade at the end of the semester.  

            As Hunt and Sekaran note out, in order to be an effective leader, one should focus on what matters and is familiar with. Therefore, I focused on the personalities of my group members so that I could be able to assign them tasks based on what each one is able and enjoy doing. For example, since Will is a party animal, meaning a people person, I preferred him to make the presentation and ask our advisor to add us more time to finish the assignment. I assigned each one of us a task that we would all handle with ease and as a result achieve our group goals and success by making sure we focus all our energies on working on our individual tasks. With each of us working on the individual’s task we ended up finishing our research paper. Additionally, we worked on all our projects together and finished up on time because I managed to take up the role of a leader to empower my group members and most importantly, setting values and living by them.

            This particular situation helped me demonstrate my effectiveness as a leader because I was able to apply some of the qualities of a leader. For example, I was able to set some values and lived by them as a group. By assigning each member his task, we were able to finish up our assignments on time as well as achieve our success. The group also relied on me to make and come up with the decisions. Additionally, I was in charge of the final proofreading of our assignments and making changes based on the school marking scheme as well as worked on many projects at once. As Porter and Malloch note out, an effective leader should be able to empower others, in terms of motivating them, recognizing their efforts, taking up new challenges, and as a result, making a big difference (45-67). After taking up the role of the leader, in terms of organizing the group, we were able to finish up all our research papers on time with utmost ease. This is because as a leader, I was able to get the work done, look to my group members for support, and went the extra mile to get things done.