Brands have remained neutral to society’s ill and the overreach of organizations, government, and powerful influencers. With social media putting pressure on leaders to follow the pulse of society, businesses have also embraced positions that would categorize them as a pro or against a position.
From a business perspective, this is a risk as any misconception about their position could have an immediate impact on their cash flow as customers demonstrate preferences with their pocket first before verbalizing their opinions in popular media.
In such circumstances, leaders should have the courage to stand up for what is right. Two of Haas’ defining principles - ‘Beyond Yourself’ and ‘Questioning the Status Quo’ capture this sentiment. Any example where you mention a leadership style that required courage is right for this essay.
Problem: In this example, the applicant cites disrupting a patriarchal practice in rural India. When husbands indulge in abusing alcohol and draining their savings, wives are burdened with managing the already strained household expenses and children’s education.
Berkeley Haas Leadership Principle: Beyond Yourself, Questioning the Status Quo
Theme: Courage
Theme (Explained): With the wide reach of mobile phones and digital wallets, an opportunity arises to control the salary from the traditional cash-based allocation to digital currency and credits, limiting the reach of disposable income from abusive husbands.
The disruption ruffles a few feathers, and a politician begins to interfere with the reach of the App to low-income families as it upended a decade-old practice. The courage of the entrepreneur to educate the public about the hurdles while remaining completely focused on the product and mission to bring equity to women workers is the core of the narrative.
Admission Consultant’s Note – Courage Narrative
Putting an audience or a stakeholder through mild discomfort is not courage. Whenever you feel tempted to add such examples in your written or video essay, think about your competition. Your peers have faced genuine threats to their psychological and physical safety to achieve a goal for themselves and better – an underrepresented community. Use the ‘courage narrative’ only if you have faced genuine threats to your safety.
Opener: I wanted to focus on the non-profit and its mission, before bringing the applicant’s leadership into the narrative.
Strategy: Unlike written essays, where details add to the authenticity of the narrative, in video essays, the details should be added with the awareness of how it will sound when you read the script aloud. You need details, but the storytelling is more important in a video essay. Sometimes details can affect the flow of the story. Read, record it a few times and edit to remove unnecessary details. In this example, there were many intermediate events that showed the roadblocks the politician created and how the applicant responded. We removed them all in the final edit to improve the sound of the narrative.
2 Minutes: 256 words
Profile: Consultant
Industry: Non-Profit
Beneficiary: Women Workers
Traits: Courage, Intellectual Curiosity, Resilience
Skills: Leadership, Technology, Strategy
Speed: Medium to Fast
250 words: Medium
250 words – 300 words: Medium to Fast
300 words and above: Fast
Sample Berkeley Haas Embody Four Defining Principles Video Essay (Beyond Yourself and Questioning the Status Quo) (Adaptability, Leveraging Power for Good and Impact-Oriented) (256 Words)
Q) The Berkeley MBA program develops leaders who embody our four Defining Leadership Principles. Briefly introduce yourself to the admissions committee, explain which Defining Leadership Principle resonates most with you, and tell us how you have exemplified the principle in your personal or professional life.
Please review the Defining Leadership Principles in advance and take time to prepare your answer before recording. You will be able to test your audio-visual connection before recording. Video essays should last 1-2 minutes and may not exceed 2 minutes.
As a non-profit on a mission to increase financial inclusion for women in rural India, we undertook the challenge of changing culture where husbands controlled how women’s incomes were spent.
While men spent 65% of their income on alcohol...
