Admission Services - Admission Essay

Cite at least one example in which your leadership impacted or changed a situation and discuss how you think IE Business School will help you refine, focus, or enhance this skill. Use the example below to show how my leadership impacted the situation and how IE business school (http://www(dot)ie(dot)edu/) will help me refine, focus or enhance this skill. Example: During my second year at university, I was undertaking a group project in my Operations Management class and was allocated a team that I was not previously acquainted with. The team was very ethnically diverse. We faced several issues. Firstly, our team was the largest in number, and there was a slight cultural clash that was causing friction between some team members. Secondly, all team members were not studying the same degree. Therefore, some members of the group had other deadlines to work on simultaneously, and because we all had different timetables, it was particularly difficult to find time to organise group meetings in order to allocate the work between us and work as a cohesive unit. Unfortunately, the majority of the team chose to focus on their other work, leaving this project behind. The team leader was particularly busy during this period of time, and so did not allocate enough time or attention to organising the team for this project or dealing with the issues that we faced. The few meetings organised by the team leader often clashed with some members' timetables, and other individuals consistently neglected their part in the project and did not respond to any attempt to communicate with them outside of class. I felt that the project was suffering due to inattentive leadership, and it consisted of a large percentage of the grade for Operations Management, so this was particularly problematic. Initially, I attempted to speak to the team leader and offer help if he did not have the time to organise the team, but he insisted that there was still sufficient time for us to meet the deadline. As time passed, there was still no progress on the project. Since my efforts with the team leader were unproductive, I decided to bring this issue to the team as a whole and obtain their help and support to take over as team leader. Therefore, I organised a meeting with all the members of the group, and suggested myself as a new team leader. A vote was held, and it turned out in my favour. As the new team leader, I spoke to every group member individually and organise meetings at times that would be suitable to all of us. I organised the project into specific sections, and allocated an area to each team member to work on individually, before combining all of our work into a whole. In order to suit all of our timetables, I minimised the number of meetings necessary so that group members did not feel that their time was being wasted. The project appeared less daunting once it had been separated into different sections, and as a result, team members were able to do their part successfully. We ended up achieving a first on this project.