In November 2004, violent anti-French rampages took place in my native country, Côte d’Ivoire. Businesses and private homes were ransacked, and eight thousand foreigners, mostly French, evacuated the country. The only school I had ever gone to back home, from kindergarten to high school, was burnt to ashes by an angry mob. I was a senior at Wesleyan University, applying for jobs, scrambling to get my academic work done and to convince my thesis advisor that I did have a valid topic, and trying to maintain a decent social life. I wasn’t sure what to think of the rampages until I started getting e-mails inciting hatred against the “French who had financed rebels and would not let Ivorians govern themselves.” I knew then. Words started flowing, questions mostly, unanswered mostly. I called out to everyone I knew, begged them to stop and think, to start verifying their sources of information, to stop spreading propaganda. I had never written a political article before, but my pain and sorrow made it easy.

I was surprised at the volume of responses. Friends from high school, middle school, French, Ivorian, and mixed, wrote back. Some said they were feeling helpless in front of all the destruction and hatred and that they regained some courage by reading my e-mail. Some asked me if they could forward my message to their own contacts. One friend told me that he had received my e-mail from four different sources within a couple of hours. He added that I should consider running for president and that he would vote for me! At that point, I understood that being a leader did not necessarily entail doing extraordinary things all the time. Sometimes, just an e-mail is enough. I had managed to get my point across efficiently and passionately and, even better, as my friends pointed out, I had started a whole new debate.

That episode also highlighted some of my weaknesses as a leader. For example, my passion could become detrimental if not supported by facts and if it remained the only guide of my actions. Also, remote leaders have never been that effective. I was so far from the main action that I could not possibly understand local people’s frustrations. That experience showed me the sky and its limits, the shortcomings of my current position, and my abilities as a leader.

Analysis

Few of us will find ourselves in as tragic a situation as did this author, but her message is universal: small actions can have large consequences. This takeaway only resonates, however, because of the emotional connection and authenticity the author establishes with the reader. Stylistically, she mixes long, compound sentences with short, direct ones. It’s almost like she’s a track runner sprinting with emotional energy, stopping every so often to take short breaths. Her writing is unfiltered and, thus, creates a strong connection with her audience. To say the least, this makes her story more memorable.

To improve upon the essay, the author could have mentioned earlier how she “directed her passion with facts” because it is not self-apparent. In fact, her entire response to the situation appears to be directed by emotion. Would this not mean, in the context of weakness discussion, that her actions “could become detrimental”?

While this loose end slightly undermines her point, she does a great job of otherwise stepping away from the storytelling in the final paragraph to objectively critique her leadership style. With such an emotionally charged topic, it would have been easy to max out the word count to provide more colorful details, but she reserves the appropriate air time for introspection and analysis. Make sure to do this, even if you have to abridge that life-changing story.

From 65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2009 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group