Leadership narratives are the best as applicants in the 3-5 year range in traditional industries - finance or technology often don't get the opportunity to lead. In this example, the applicant shares an opportunity to lead that fell into his lap from an M&A. From leading 3-5 people in a startup to managing a 30-person team is the narrative arc.
The differing temperaments, motivations, and culture of a Fortune 500 company while managing the emotional health of the team during the pandemic is the 2nd half of the narrative that helped the applicant grow as a leader.
Sample Yale SOM Significant Challenge MBA Essay: Leadership in Startup to Leadership in Fortune 500 (496 Words)
I was leading a team of three in our Data Analytics startup that used plane routes and publicly available pricing to create a predictive model that helped Hotels plan their offers. In just a year, our product was used by over 60,000 hotels around the world. Aligning the three-person team to our objective of creating an ‘easy’ plug-and-play service didn’t require huge adjustment as all three had a similar approach to creativity and aggressively pursuing targets. In 2020, just before the pandemic, the Founder accepted an offer for acquisition, and overnight, I was the Product Manager of a 30-person team, half of whom were older than me by over a decade.
Unlearning and re-learning leadership lessons of a startup and adapting them to a Fortune 500 company was the biggest challenge I faced. ..
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