Leadership...Grrr!!!

Well, this is the topic of Essay #3 for ESADE - "one characterestic quality of a leader". You know what the worst past of this question is - it is such an open ended question!! Why can't they make life simple by asking who is your favourite leader? or, whom do you idealise as a perfect leader? Why can't they specify whether we have to state some other person or whether we have to state our own experiences. Why ESADE, why??

Well, to contradict myself - I am loving this question. Though I may miserably suffer and stay up all night trying to think about what to write on this, I would not want to change this question even a bit. This is the fun of mba applications - many ask me this, why do mba colleges ask us to write seperate instead of asking one professional motivation document like the way Masters course does. I have only one answer - Management professionals do not have enough time to make their point and have an impact too. Precision is the key. MBA students don't learn a jack shit of what they do not know already. In fact, I have heard from many students that at the end of their MBA course, they feel a little dumb - they paid lakhs of rupees to realise that they need to talk well - basically, they are left with nothingness (reminds me of my Landmark Forum :P). But, as they say in Landmark, nothingness provides the opportunity to create something for yourself and for the people around you. I would like to believe that an MBA course provides that nothingness to create a wonderful future for me (Yea my Ferrari baby...m coming ;)) Ok, coming back to the point, the fact that you have to be precise in your applications makes so much sense for the admissions committee too. I feel it is a little dumb to give applicants complete control over how much they would like to write about themselves. MBA colleges have never been as relevant before, and with the number of applications soaring by the day, I strongly believe that the current structure is well founded.

Coming back to Esade essays, I just finished the first draft of the leadership essay. I have got the other essays reviewed by a few current students and the alumni - their feedback is positive, but I gotta cut them down to the fit within the word limits (I hate this part man!!). Anyways, with the deadline on the 16th of Oct, this just means a few more sleepless nights :)

With Diwali around the corner, I am sure it is all worth it :)
And 16th Oct is after all the most special day of my life, so I am determined to make this happen :) :)