Тема эссе: Choose a recent experience in which you acted as a leader. Briefly outline the situation, describe your leadership role, and then explain how you were effective and what you learned.

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As managing editor of University of Michigan's student newspaper, I was responsible for deciding how to appropriately cover the football team's quest for its first national championship in over fifty years. I decided to publish a special edition on the afternoon of Michigan's final regular season game — but only if the team won.

As managing editor, I led a team of reporters, editors, advertising managers, and circulation managers that successfully printed the first Saturday afternoon edition in the 107-year history of the Michigan Daily.

My greatest challenge was to align the separate staffs in one common vision. While the editorial staff was excited about the project, many advertising managers felt uncomfortable selling ads for a newspaper that may never get published. Likewise, the circulation department had qualms about distributing the newspapers when university buildings, our usual delivery points, were closed.


I met with the leaders of each staff to discuss their concerns and gain a greater understanding of their operations. I evaluated various scenarios, and developed a plan in which editorial and business staffs would collaborate on circulation and advertising responsibilities. This not only alleviated concerns about a tight deadline, but also allowed sportswriters and advertising managers to collectively identify local merchants that would covet advertising space in this issue.

Additionally, the circulation department worked with the arts and leisure staff to select local bars and restaurants as new delivery points.

Through this experience I learned to integrate disparate inputs into a unified perspective. Although very little can be accomplished without well-balanced, multidisciplined teams, molding different viewpoints into a single vision is a task that can trip up all but the most successful leaders. I've learned to request input from each team member, not because it is important to make them feel valuable, but because open discussion is the best way to generate successful ideas.

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