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Essay 6:

a. Describe a situation in which you demonstrated leadership. What motivated you? What challenged you? What was the outcome and why? (500 words)
Leadership can be demonstrated in a broad range of actions ranging from professional experiences and everyday life to big business projects or small personal matters. The important factor is that you inspire those around you to succeed, no matter what the situation involves. True leadership is a characteristic that must be earned and is not something that can just be assigned to you. Although I believe that I earned the title of leader through my outstanding performance and promotions, perhaps a better example of my leadership ability occurred outside of the workplace during my university years.

My class had organized a hiking activity in a park near our city. Around noon, about eight or nine of us decided to ride our bicycles back to the school. Unfortunately, disaster struck as one of my classmates lost control of her bicycle and had a bad accident. She was knocked unconscious with blood covering her entire face. Everyone was in shock – none of us had ever encountered such a situation and most of my classmates panicked and began behaving irrationally. Fortunately I maintained a level head and realized that she needed emergency help immediately. Because we had no way to call for help, I ran to a distant parking lot near the lake. There I found a kind man willing to drive me back to the site of the accident and help my friend.

I asked two other classmates to go with us to the hospital while the others stayed behind to look after the bicycles and wait for our other classmates. My friend received ten stitches and the doctor told us that her life was no longer in danger. While she was receiving medical care, I called the relevant people at our school and at the medical center of the university. As it was Sunday, no driver was available, so I proposed finding an alternative method of getting my injured friend back to the school. I stopped a van along the road and the driver agreed to safely transport my friend back to the school. My friend recovered nicely with no long-term complications due mainly to our timely actions.

Although this was the first time that I had encountered such a medical emergency, I was able to show composure and leadership when my friend’s life was in danger. I realized that even under pressure and unsure what course of action to take, I could make decisions and remained composed. In giving orders during the emergency, I felt that my colleagues trusted me. Their faith in me gave me more confidence to face this situation.

This incident gave me the chance to react under tremendous pressure with life changing consequences. It has given me more courage and motivation to face bigger challenges in my life and career. In a sense, this accident still affects me today by giving me affirmation that no matter what the challenge is, I can rise to the occasion. I have a deep faith in the basic instincts that helped me through that emergency – leadership, composure and the ability to make decisions under pressure - to allow me to succeed in all aspects of my future life.

b. Describe a work situation in which your goal was not achieved. How did you deal with it? What was the outcome? (350 words)

While working as a market development manager for Hewlett-Packard, my department failed to reach its revenue target for fiscal year 1998. The main problem was with the sales of our large format media (LFM) products, which had been trending downward early in the year. We missed our revenue target in the first quarter and I was receiving enormous pressure from our regional marketing center. I was determined to investigate the situation and find a solution.

Through a thorough and market and distribution channel investigation, I found that the sell-through of our three wholesalers was very low while their inventory level was too high. My research showed that the main problems were intense market competition and a failure to sell products appropriate to our target market. The key factors causing the problem were: 1) the price of Hewlett-Packard LFM was much higher than competing domestic OEM brands and many local manufacturers had entered the business; 2) our products were very high quality, but also higher priced, which allowed lower quality, lower priced competitors to take our market share; 3) many counterfeit HP products were being sold in the market, and; 4) our company lacked products such as backlit media to appeal to the commercial advertising segment, which is one of the largest potential markets for LFM in China.

My company implemented three of my six proposed solutions:
1) Assign only one dedicated wholesaler to carry our product line;
2) Lower the price of some key models to compete with the domestic OEM brands;
3) Implement channel and end-user promotions to increase sales for the next quarter;

We still fell short of our revenue goals, but I learned some important lessons. As a business manager, you must be very sensitive to the needs of the market and willing to change as soon as possible. Products with the highest quality are not necessarily what are needed in a particular market. If I had taken these measures earlier, we may have been able to meet our goal. I learned to be much more sensitive to customer needs – to be more marketing oriented rather than product oriented.