The Application Process

Hello everyone,

I am planning to apply to Business schools and I understand that leadership is a quality that everyone seems to be looking for. In order to demonstrate leadership, I would first like to understand what leadership truly is.

Could you please suggest some books that talk about various leadership styles and personalities and describe various situations in which leadership can be demonstrated.

Looking forward to your reply, thanks.

Unfortunately I can't recommend any book, though I wanted to give some examples of leadership b-schools look for:

Taking initiative:
- Suggesting ideas in a project and implementing them
- Improving a process to make things more efficient
- Founding a club, organization, or non-profit
- Being proactive and following through with ideas

Then there are the common leadership examples:
- Leading teams at work
- Leading teams through extracurricular activities / non-profits
- Military experience

Hope this helps.

You could also use volunteering experience as an example of leadership. For example, in my applications, I could have provided examples from work, school projects, research that I have conducted through a lab. However, all of this came back to my career or research related to my career interests. Therefore, I decided to use my volunteering experience - helping students with reading skills - as an example of leadership. I believe that using a more unique example can help you emphasize an unconventional background or interests.

Good luck.