It can be overwhelming to manage a team when there are several things that take the focus away from the goals. Good leaders have to remain calm, maintain perspective, and a good sense of humor amidst the chaos. In addition to that, leaders have to motivate and keep the spirits high.
Learn why maintaining focus is an important quality for a leader
The image of a leader that has been conveyed in popular culture is that of someone who is giving orders and is constantly planning something. Contrary to popular images, a big part of being an effective leader is having excellent listening skills. Learn how to mention your listening skills as a leader in MBA Application.
Many think that humility is the least associated quality with leadership. When you think about successful leaders, it is the image of vocal leaders that come to our mind. There is no harm in being vocal about goals, and principles. In fact, over communicating is a key skill that is required to lead a team. But humility by definition does not mean that you have to be meek.
Learn how to incorporate Humility in your Leadership Essay.
Personal responsibility does not come that often when you think about leadership qualities. It is always about “My Team didn’t perform well”, “We lacked coordination”, “Our communication was poor.” You can make all the excuses you want but if you are leading a team, the failure is because of one person – “You.” The team has given you the authority to lead. So how do you go about explaining failure as a leader in your essay?
Read about how to incorporate Personal responsibility in your essay.
Meeting Deadlines as a quality might seem trivial when compared to all the other general leadership qualities that we have seen in management and other self-help books but when you think about what makes a project successful, one key performance indicator that stands out is the ability of the team to achieve a goal in a particular timeframe. Learn more about different types of deadlines.
This is part of our Leadership series that emphasis qualities that should be highlighted for your MBA Application. Today we will focus on ‘Trust’, a key quality that allows you to influence your team members as a leader. Find out how to build trust.
If you are too embarrassed to admit that your career choice or project implementation failed, then take courage from the words of the some of the greatest achievers in the field of technology, arts, sciences, and politics.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill
Learn what to write for MBA Application Failure Essay
Motivation is derived from the Latin word moveo, which means “Move”. To show that you are motivated to do an MBA program, the essay should explain why you want to break away from the status Quo.
Almost all MBA Application Essays starts with “Why MBA”. The question is quintessential and measures applicant’s motivation for the program. To show that you are motivated to do an MBA program, the essay should explain why you want to break away from the status Quo. Learn how to find your Internal Motivation.
Leadership Essay is a common essay in most MBA Application. Although you might not get a direct question about your leadership style, AdCom would like to get a peek into how you behave when assigned with higher responsibilities. The tone, the action steps, and the results that you mention in the essays give hints about your leadership style.
Leadership styles can be classified into three categories: Autocratic, Democratic and Delegative. Find out the style where you fit in!
Most MBA Aspirants ask us about the best practices for MBA Application Essays. The first thing we say is that don’t assume what the MBA Admission committee wants to hear but look at how you can represent yourself, honestly.Here are 8 Must Read Tips for your essays.
MBA admissions officers have begun to experiment with wildly different formats that replace the traditional essay. These audio, video and PowerPoint formats allow schools to learn about the “real” applicant, or the person behind the resume, GMAT score and undergraduate institution of record. Learn how to Excel in Multimedia Essays!
Q) I've read that extra-curricular activities (ie. leadership via community involvement) is an important part of the assessment. As a consultant/auditor I have little time for activities outside of work, however I have good leadership experience of many teams in the work environment. Could you comment about the weight placed on community involvement in the application process?
Approaching the new set of Haas Business School questions may be intimidating, as you are required to answer six questions that focus on a variety of attributes and accomplishments, while you are being judged upon “a strong cultural fit with our program and defining principles.” A clear understanding of your application strategy – particularly your career goals and strengths/weaknesses will be key to put together a cohesive application.
Haas Business School short answers require focus, at only 250 words you will need to answer concisely and clearly to make sure your point is communicated. While challenging, this is also an opportunity to demonstrate several different aspects of your personality to the admissions committee.
As Haas Business School asks for your career goals last, the admissions committee will be getting to know you as a person before they understand what you are planning to do with your future. Make sure your career goals aren’t a huge surprise at the end, and that they logically flow from your attitude, personality and experiences.
F1GMAT: How do you define leadership from an MBA admissions point of view?
Stacy Blackman: What is leadership? If you are applying to an MBA program, you are going to need to figure out the answer to this question. Find out what AdCom is looking for!
Your MBA candidacy does
not boil down to concrete career achievement, GMAT scores, and academic
pedigree. MBA programs across the U.S. and the world are looking to
build student bodies that are diverse in the broadest sense of the word.
So, before you have your candidacy assessed and regression analyses run
on your chances of admission, take a more humanistic, critical self-appraisal of your application.
Take greater risks in articulating
your values and exploring the forces that really drive you.
Strive to be more authentic.
To convince the business
school that it is your first choice is similar to a situation where you
are trying to convince your date that she is the only one that matters
to you, even though you might be seeing someone else at the same time.
Actions are fine but if you are not able to quantify the results, the whole process would be ineffective.
End of the day the admission committee wants to select people who are action oriented and who get along with other student
F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay guide will teach you how to transform your essay into a life journey with trials and tribulations that will move the admission team.
+ Over 245 Sample Essays (Read Previews of F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide Sample Essays here)
F1GMAT's Essay Guides
Harvard MBA Essay Guide (20 Sample Essays)
Example #1: Persistence Narrative
Background Information: The applicant – a design and music talent, shares her journey through several setbacks. She attributes curiosity to her growth.
Curiosity: Philosophy
Curiosity (Explained): Curiosity as a philosophy is tough to translate into a narrative unless you are from the creative industry or your contributions had an influence on a solution or an initiative.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to capture the humanity of the applicant and her influence in music instead of just highlighting how she overcame multiple roadblocks to gain attention as a designer.
Theme: Persistence
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Life Starts at NO (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #2: International Community Building
Background Information: The applicant, a Machine Learning (ML) entrepreneur specializing in healthcare diagnostics, shares how his curiosity to learn other ML algorithms’ evolution in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease transformed his platform into a global community.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to show the applicant’s contributions in diagnostic from 2020 to 2024 by citing two events. Such examples build credibility instead of engagements that were recent. The evolution of the platform from an AI development community to a community for discussing the application of AI in diagnostics is captured through a ‘curiosity’ angle.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Growth through Collaboration (AI in Healthcare) (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #3: Culture
Background Information: The applicant, an Entrepreneur from India narrates his first entrepreneurial experience – facilitating exchange of stamps in the late 1990s.
Theme: Culture
MBA Essay Strategy: Instead of addressing the biases in the investor community that could turn preachy, I wanted to focus on the applicant and his entrepreneurial journey by citing two entrepreneurial experiences – a platform(club) for stamp collection and his Grocery delivery App.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – The American Dream (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #4: Addiction
Background Information: The applicant – a beneficiary of the foster home system, captures the sacrifice his adopted grandparents made to save him from a path of addiction. Paying it back through early intervention among teenagers and community engagement is the curiosity narrative.
Theme: Addiction
MBA Essay Strategy: My strategy is to capture a gratitude narrative in the first one-third of the essay to demonstrate motivation for starting the venture and dedicate the latter part of the essay to the unique solution
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Drug Addiction and Gaming (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #5: Scarcity
Background Information: The applicant, an education major, recognizes that 70% of all students in Kenya don’t have a computer. The curiosity that drives him to pivot from one solution to another is the growth narrative.
Theme: Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: Often, innovation is captured with a ‘hero’ narrative where the applicant is the sole originator of an idea. I wanted to break that cliché and include a person from whom the applicant learned to use a concept called ‘scaffolding.’
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Scarcity (Growth-Oriented HBS Essay Example)
Example #6: FinTech
Background Information: The applicant captures a vulnerable moment of a beneficiary to compare his journey of side hustle before a technology giant noticed his talent. Although cryptocurrency is not a flavor for the year, capture niches where innovation is still happening.
Theme: Education, Child Welfare
MBA Essay Strategy: Empathizing with a techno solution is tough without a strong backstory around the beneficiary. For the essay, I wanted to clearly establish the beneficiary – Rami, before the applicant narrates the similarities to his journey and finally shares the solution that emerged from his curiosity.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – FinTech as a Tool for Good (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #7: Learning from the best
Background Information: The applicant – a Remote Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry, reflects on a value that has helped her learn from the best regardless of her geographical limitations.
Theme: Learning
MBA Essay Strategy: The effectiveness of the case-study method depends on the assumption that peers in a Harvard MBA class will help elevate your learning experience. For the essay, I have highlighted the applicant’s recognition of this value proposition with three examples.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Learning from the Best (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #8: Military & Search for IMPACT
Background Information: The most common narrative for US military applicants is to quote 9/11 and the reaction your immediate family had while watching the events unfold. The horrifying moment is captured as a motivation to join the Military. On digging deeper, most applicants would share that their motivations were diverse.
Theme: Career Choice
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to quickly highlight that the applicant had the choice of entering any industry. One achievement to demonstrate his curiosity that I shared in the first half is the invention of a game. Since the game is mentioned in the resume and verifiable through search, I didn’t quote the name. By clearly highlighting the person’s curiosity and career options, the family legacy is used as a factor in joining the military.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Career Choice after a Military Career (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)
Example #9: Small Business Values
Background Information: The applicant - a second-generation Asian American, is familiar with the values of fiscal conservatism, building relationships, and understanding the daily struggles of the community through his family’s department store.
Theme: Customer-Centric
MBA Essay Strategy: The applicant’s role in developing an App for the store is highlighted in the essay at a crucial part of the narrative so that the essay is not all about his father. I have also humanized the journey – by sharing how upset the father was when the revenues fell by 40%. The essay is about the transformation in the applicant’s value from a person chasing productivity and optimization technique to someone who is truly thinking about the customers.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Small Business Values (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #10: Breaking Away from Family Business
Background Information: A unique challenge that applicants whose parents are public figures or CXOs of businesses or entrepreneurs are the pressure to live up to the parent’s standards or milestones. For the leadership narrative, the burden of legacy is established before the narrative addresses his leadership principles.
Theme: Authenticity
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, I want to capture an entrepreneur’s journey to rise above his entrepreneur father’s image. But I didn’t want to make the entire essay about this complex dynamics. The narrative is around the applicant’s focus on customers and surrounding with teams who keeps him grounded.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Breaking Away from Family Business(Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #11: Creativity and Communication
Background Information: When the overall percentage of users with internet access is 62% in South Africa and the inequality accentuated by the rural and urban divide, the applicant endured the lack of digital infrastructure, and spending close to 22% of the family income on gaining relevant information on schools, global exams, and financial assistance.
Theme: Creativity, Communication
MBA Essay Strategy: The strategy is to share why the applicant values no distraction in a child’s home for optimum education experience. Then I highlight the many roadblocks the applicant’s non-profit faced in receiving fee waiver for their cooperative run ISP.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Non-Profit (Telecom) (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #12: Mental Health
Background Information: The applicant like most didn’t pay much attention to the mental health epidemic until tragedy hit home.
Theme: Communication, Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: A question we frequently get from applicants is whether they should cite tragedy in the family as a motivation for a venture or a non-profit initiative. As long as you don’t linger too much on the tragedy and offer a balanced narrative, there are no restrictions on leveraging unique stories from your life.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Mental Health (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #13: Trauma, Healing & Finding Authentic Self
Background Information: The applicant narrates the absurdity of war in the narrative about the duties in Kabul, and the trauma. Instead of wallowing in on the horror, the applicant takes what makes military applicants strong and guides unprivileged children build life and leadership skills.
Theme: Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing PTSD in an essay, the healing process, and the cues that helped the applicant are too sacred to be shared in a Harvard MBA application essay. However, with the right motivation and narrative arcs, you can capture the essence of your journey without sharing the darkest secrets. That is what I did by merging two stories – the horrors of the war with a non-profit engagement.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Military & PTSD (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #14: Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra
Background Information: In this narrative, the applicant captures Peru’s Silver mining boom of 2006. The growth experienced in her father’s business shifted the family’s economic status to a new stratosphere. Through the changing economic and family dynamics, the applicant finds her voice in a unique way, initially to record her unheard voice but later as one of the youngest subject matter experts in mining and commodities.
Theme: Failure
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, the strategy is to show how life’s unpredictability is a blessing. By narrating two setback events, the essay demonstrates the applicant’s resilience and her acknowledgment of people who made a comeback possible.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #15: War, Immigration and Starting Over Again
Background Information: Despite a raging war in Syria, the family of the applicant was unblemished by the chaos. The strategic government assets near the applicant’s house would have made the region an easy target, but it was not. The calmness of her journey is shattered in one event. From the privileges of a cocooned life, the applicant is forced to think about survival, her sister’s future, and her future in the US. The second half of the narrative captures the change that was forced on her.
Theme: Gratitude, Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: I consciously chose not to start the essay with a dialogue or trauma. Two lines are allocated to set up the narrative before the trauma event.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – War, Immigration and Starting Over Again (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)
Example #16: Creative or Finance
Background Information: The applicant starts the narrative with the origin of her talents. The unbridled enthusiasm receives a reality check when in high school, the applicant’s father has a conversation with her about academics. While the applicant picked up her quant skills, she was reaching over 50,000 loyal fans, and her videos captured 1 million views.
Theme: Passion, Talent
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing vulnerability is the toughest part for Harvard MBA applicants. For this essay example, I have captured the applicant’s uncertainty about career choice throughout the essay. Here the goal is to show vulnerability in the career choice essay while for leadership and growth essay, I could capture one example each from creative and PE industry respectively to balance the narrative. So don’t follow this example without a strategy.
Read: Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay – Creative or Finance (Business-Minded HBS MBA Essay Example)
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