scholarship app personal statement

Jacob Markovitz

I am applying for the Jacob Markovitz Scholarship in order to help finance the furtherance of my education in leadership. I will be attending Yorkville University, in the Master of Education program in Education Leadership. I will be focusing on the Leadership in Learning stream, which is intended for leaders outside of the educational profession.

I see this program as making a tremendous contribution to my skill set. I have built up a lot of experience as a project manager (PMP) over the past several years, and I see getting leadership training as the next step in my career evolution. Adding knowledge of leadership is going to help me to become a better person who can inspire others, which will enhance my value in the marketplace. There are many examples of talented technical workers who need to specifically learn leadership in order to take their careers to the next level (Farr & Brazil, 2009).

Leadership is one of those vague concepts – there are many definitions of what leadership is. One definition is that leaders are the people who take visions and turn them into reality (Psychology Today, 2017), and while that is a fair take, I also know that is what a project manager does. I think the defining characteristic about leadership that differentiates it from management in that sense is the human side. As a manager, I have plenty of experience telling people what to do, but a leader inspires – under a great leader a team will not just perform, but outperform.

Communication is probably the most important element in leadership, because of its importance in motivating people not just to action, but to be their absolute best. A look at any list of leadership skills has communication right at the top. Many of the traits of leaders that follow are related to communication – motivation, delegating, providing feedback – these are the skills that one can learn by studying leadership and benchmarking how the best leaders perform these roles in their organizations (Doyle, 2017). For example, leadership requires a shift in communication, from detailed instruction son doing something, with specs, to more of a focus on key takeaways and message simplicity (Eventoff, 2017).

Other skills that I hope to acquire from this program are positivity and responsibility. It can be difficult to lead when you bring negativity to the workplace, and people respond to a high level of positivity and personal integrity. When one fails to uphold one's end of a bargain, then one needs to be culpable, and honest with themselves about what kind of person they have been. This is the only way to get better, the only way to improve oneself. One of the traits I admire most in leaders in their self-assurance; they are not afraid to be human and use that to make themselves better.

In fact, in a Harvard Business Review study on leadership, the most commonly cited trait is that leaders have to have high ethical and moral standards, and a leaders also needs to be able to effectively communicate expectations and goals in a way that gets the desired result. This is actually a little bit less structured than what I've done in my career – part of my path to self-improvement is that I need to recognize that telling people what to do as part of my job limits me – part of inspiring people is to give them the leeway to succeed or fail on the basis of their talent (Giles, 2016). This more team-based approach to leadership; not a focus on the individual but a focus on creating great teams is one of the foundational concepts in modern leadership (Bolden & Gosling, 2006).

I have come to realize that leadership studies are a pathway to better things in my career. The role of project manager has been rewarding, and I've learned a lot of things that I will apply for the rest of my career, but I have hit a ceiling, having done much the same role in a few different companies. In speaking with my advisors and mentors, I have come to the understanding that leadership is really the next level, and I see this course as getting me there. I have plenty of education, having already obtained an MBA, and a lot of work experience as well., but for me to elevate is really to develop those soft skills that leaders possess that will allow me to identify and resolve problems, manage conflict in the workplace effectively, and encourage personal growth among the members of my team.

I will be taking a break from my career in order to pursue this course of study. I feel that this is necessary as my current role requires long hours, and it would be difficult to manage my time in such a manner that would allow me to thrive both as a student and as a project manager. For that reason, the Jacob Markovitz Scholarship is an important component to my being able to obtain the education that I need to propel my career further.

I am drawn in particular to the Yorkville University program because I will not need to relocate, but also because of the focus on education. As a manager, I've come to appreciate the role of the teacher in an organization. The leaders I admire most, the ones against whom I benchmark myself, seem to be able to teach the people working for them in amazing ways. This doesn't require a lot of time sometimes – but finding ways to convey exactly the right bit of learning at the right time, is something that I believe is one of the traits of great leaders I admire the most. Taking a different perspective will help me a lot; I do not wish to study leadership at a business school because it is too familiar. I will benefit more exploring different contexts, and from spending time with people different from myself and my current peers. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that cross-sector training in leadership enhances one's leadership ability (2000).

My taking these leadership skills back to my career, I will be able to step into more advanced roles. The ceiling I have found for myself will be eroded. I can train people to excel in the workplace. I work with many different departments in the course of my job, which allows me the opportunity to understand what a lot of different people in the organization are going through. I can apply this to training – first with a company to learn, and then hopefully to open my own training centre, where I will be able to apply my knowledge of best practices and my knowledge of how to motivate and inspire others.

The timing for me is perfect. There is evidence to show that timing is important when learning about leadership. One benefits from having a certain amount of experience, including leading teams and projects, before one can get the most out of their leadership studies. I feel that I have the right amount of experience on which to draw at this point, so that I will be able to better contextualize lessons. I will learn things and then be able to reflect on my own experiences to see where I could have done better, and take that as a learning opportunity (Mumford et al, 2000).