GMAT Verbal & Essays

One of my friends shared with me this essay, that was submitted by a candidate for the purposes of the Harvard MBA program admissions. My friend told me that this person was accepted to the Harvard MBA program. The essay question and Answer is as follows:


Answer a question you wish we'd asked. (400 words)


My question: What does leadership mean to you?
Bye-bye charisma: We don't need ivory-tower cheerleaders such as Kenneth Lay, Dick Fuld, Martha Stewart, or Barack Obama; the world needs leaders who can manage complexity, anticipate variable risk in the increasingly fuzzy and intermeshed world, understand cross-cultural work environments, and excite knowledge workspaces of 21st century, which are clearly over-managed but under-led.
In the trenches: To me, "30,000-feet" is just lame jargon; we need perceptive leaders with an execution-bias and multi-dimensional perspectives. No big projects happen in silos; the essential ingredients of business"•people, product (or service or cause), processes, positioning, technology, finance, sustainability, and social acceptance"•all play out as a complex, interwoven reality. A successful global leader has to manage all the ingredients with finesse.
Think global, act local: What works as incentive at one place may work as a deterrent at another. Developing markets throw quite different challenges from developed ones. For instance, the CEO of a large organization in the US should understand what motivates people in different cross-cultural environments across five continents. Managing and retaining talent today are possibly the biggest of organizational challenges. Earlier the core-values needed to stand the test of time; today they need to stand the test of geography.
Redefining humility: Leaders need to be humble enough to take a hard look at themselves, accept mistakes, and drive organizational change. More importantly, they need to make themselves redundant by preparing a second-line. Humility also means hiring much smarter people; the workplace must be a talent powerhouse teeming with passion.
No faster horses: I like Henry Ford's quote: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Leaders have to innovate by trusting their gut, grit, and gumption. Strategy today is not competition, survival or marketing; it is about creating such visceral traction about your brand that "positioning" alone can make customers flock to you. Marketing is building a church, positioning is creating a religion.
The power of a click: Cult companies such as Nokia, Dell, and Apple couldn't remain immune to the biggest game-changer of our times"•the Internet. Social-media revolution, viral marketing, and the newly formed global village mandate that leaders can't take their eyes off the ball; not even for a day. "Wowing" the online community is the new services paradigm.
Talk simple: Finally, leaders need to talk"•profound enough to move mountains and simple enough to get people to do so.
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