How to exhibit different forms of leadership in your MBA application?

Each year, the pool of students applying to elite MBA schools grows increasingly competitive. Many candidates may believe that the ideal candidate in the eyes of the admissions committee is mostly determined by academic number factors such as GPA and GMAT score.

Leadership is important to business schools because it displays an applicant’s potential to channel the team’s effort towards a common goal. The jobs you will get after your MBA will push you to align the team toward the company’s vision, mission, and goals.

Applicants are frequently confused between two words, managing and leading, and their applications suffer. These two words are completely distinct from one another.

Manager: Channelizing team’s effort towards a common goal by having authority over team-members

Leader: Channelizing team’s effort towards a common goal without any direct authority over team-members

Why would a team follow someone who does not have authority? Because a Leader has a vision that others follow. Vision is motivating enough for team members to work in the direction. Leaders chart a path of action, develop an exciting vision, and produce something novel or structure the existing plan to achieve greater heights. This is where the adcoms want you to demonstrate your leadership skills and how MBA will help you manage all the aspects.

WHAT IS A LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE FOR MBA, AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

This is such a basic question, yet candidates often get it wrong and make mistakes in their essays. For example, some people feel that seniority or position in a company’s hierarchy matters in leadership.; however, this is not the case. Too often, when people talk about a company’s leadership, they are referring to the top executives in the corporation. Senior executives are just that.

You don’t become a leader overnight if you achieve a specific pay grade. One might be a competent manager but not a leader; therefore, don’t mix leadership with management skills. Full-time looks for leadership potential. Adcoms know you are not sitting at the top of the pyramid. If you were, you would not need an MBA. Below is a table that lists down how you can show leadership potential and differentiate yourself from just being a manager.

WHY IS IT ESSENTIAL IN MBA APPLICATIONS?

Leadership is a critical management role that assists in directing an organization’s resources for increased efficiency and goal attainment. Effective leaders clarify the organization’s goal and motivate and steer it to achieve its objective. Let us illustrate this with an example.

It is just as vital as the father/mother in a family.

It is as significant as the Prime Minister/President of a country.

It is just as crucial as being the Captain of an army.

What would happen if none of those above three had a leader? It results in the collision of autonomous decisions. Everyone will have an opinion and will want it to be adopted.

This is why candidates should demonstrate their capabilities. It can only be done via your narrative, a story that explains the influence that your actions and ideas had not just on you but also on channeling efforts toward a shared objective.

VARIOUS FORMS OF LEADERSHIP

Authoritarian leadership – often referred to as autocratic leadership, is a style of management in which a single individual has complete decision-making authority and complete power over his colleagues. An authoritarian leader makes policy, procedural, and group objectives choices with little or no involvement from their team members or followers.

Leadership through participation – Where participation and collaboration are critical to ensuring that objectives are accomplished via comprehensive ways of talk and are compatible with the desired Company KPIs, It is a more time-consuming strategy. However, once the processes, ownership, and timeliness are specified, the overall outcomes may be expected to be superior, provided the project leader or coordinator is aggressive.

Delegation of Authority – Delegation entails providing someone the opportunity to work, which helps someone else progress in completing the task. Therefore, it will boost their capability and their chances of success in life. Thus, delegation implies that you are growing individuals and improving their life. This, in turn, is what leadership entails.

Leadership in Transactions – Organizations that need to be very efficient to survive may embrace transactional leadership. They must constantly monitor, coordinate, regulate, and manage resources while maintaining a high process optimization and control level. They do not need to be transformative and establish a new vision for the firm; instead, they must become more process-focused to manage with consistency and predictability.

Transformational leadership – Transformational leaders are those who, as a leader, have a vision, are creative, imaginative, and have control over their own and others’ emotions. They influence the behavior of their followers in a non-coercive manner, to attain particular goals or objectives.”

RESOURCES FOR LEADERSHIP AND CREATIVITY STATEMENT SAMPLE

You might not obtain an example of how a candidate might demonstrate their leadership qualities in an essay or what leadership is; therefore, we attempted to find a suitable example for you to grasp what leadership is and how you can draw inspiration from that essay.

we attempted to find a suitable example for you to grasp what creativity is and how you can draw inspiration from that essay.

There are instances when you have the potential in yourself and on paper. However, candidates struggle with words and sentences, how to convey their leadership qualities in their application, and remembering these things.

Demonstrating communication skills.

Exemplifications on how to Highlight results

Emphasize your willingness to commit.

Highlight terms linked to leadership.

The more number of factors, the more mistakes an applicant would make, which is why you need a consultant who has been working in this field for a long time, such as MBA and beyond consultants, where we have produced excellent MBA applications and essays that have helped candidates get into their desired B-schools.

If you want to get into your desired school, schedule a call with our experts and get a free profile evaluation to find out where you stand.