gmatpapa wrote:
Quote:
Essay 2: At Chicago Booth, we believe each individual has his or her own leadership style. How has your family, culture, and/or environment influenced you as a leader?
In this question, can we write about the work environment and professional activities that have influenced us as a leader or should only non professional activities be listed here?
I have prepared for both actually and depending on the requirement of the essay, will decide whether I'd want to give this essay a mixed flavor..
Any suggestions?
You know I think this is one of the most open ended questions on any application I've seen..They've specifically mentioned family & culture, but by including 'environment' they've opened up the door to virtually anything under the sun...The 'environment' being referred here could be professional, political, social, economic or whatever...Won't elaborate on professional or social since they are the most obvious ones..but regarding the other two examples...
Political environment.. say someone interacted intensely with really strong political leaders (Arab Spring
) or actively participated in any sort of social revolution in a country, his/her leadership style could've been influenced heavily by this experience and this might make for really good essay points
Economic environment..so say someone got laid off during the recession of '08-'09 and then formed a self-help kinda group to help out people in similar situations.. or ..perhaps he/she met someone at that time who was really inspirational and that motivated him/her to get a new job & look at life with a new perspective...this could've influenced his/her leadership style in a big way as well...
So...long story short..In my opinion, the essence of this essay is to list the TOP factors that have influenced your leadership style the most and weave it into a nice story that shows your progression and maturity of leadership...if your influencing factors are professional, so be it, if they are not, nevermind...