This is something you will have heard before, but it is so important, and applicants fail to follow it so often, that it bears yet another repetition: when you are writing your essays, you need to show your strengths in MBA essays. Try to express yourself in very concrete terms. Saying “I have been a leader ever since I was a student. In college, I led my college cricket team to victory in the inter-college cricket championship,” is not concrete enough. Leave out the personal pronoun, and this might well be a sentence from your resume. What did you do as the captain of your team that demonstrates your leadership qualities? Was there an occasion when your team was on the brink of losing, but you kept your cool. Inspired by you, your team-mates held their nerve and ultimately you succeeded in winning what had seemed to be a losing match. Did that ever happen? If yes, this is what you need to talk about. This is what being concrete means.
When you are discussing a particular trait, make certain you don’t provide the same kind of examples. Let us try to understand the meaning of the word “leadership” here. It is an umbrella term that has many facets to it, and includes qualities like being a good listener, or persuader, or mentor, or motivator, or organizer, or manager, or quite a few other things as well. In your first example, you have already given evidence of your ability to maintain your calm and function optimally in a crisis. In your second example, whether it is in the same essay or in another one, focus on a different facet of your leadership. If you take something that not many other applicants dwell on, then you have the added advantage of standing out from the rest.
For instance, why not project yourself as a leader who listens? A good listener is not only attentive to what others say, he or she is also mindful of their mood, facial expressions, body language and behavioral characteristics. Those who care to really listen are better and more compassionate leaders who can forge more trustworthy and constructive working relationships that benefit both the individuals concerned and the organization as a whole. Can you cite an occasion when, just by virtue of listening well, you were able to get the best of the employees working for you, or when you succeeded in avoiding an impending crisis?
The same principle would apply to your other strengths as well. If you are highlighting your problem-solving skills, refer to problems of different kinds. Don’t treat the term ‘problem-solving’ generically, but break it down to some of its constituent elements, and discuss those, as in the case of ‘leadership.’
There are applicants who have achieved a lot, but who fail to put across their accomplishments convincingly; and there are also those who, despite having achieved less, derive the maximum mileage out of it purely on the merit of the superior presentation of their strengths. If you can combine the former’s achievements with the latter’s power of expression, you will greatly enhance your chances of entering the b-school of your choice.
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