Stanford's What Matters Essay can also be a reflection of your evolution as a leader.
I have not included the applicant’s professional journey as the Why Stanford MBA essay more than sufficiently captures his motivation for an MBA.
For this essay, I captured a journey – first by narrating the evolution of the applicant’s thinking with relocation to a city and joining a school with diverse peers. It is an indirect reference to the diversity of experiences and perspectives an MBA program offers without mentioning it directly. But a larger theme I wanted to include was expressing vulnerability as a leader.
Often, leadership traits in Stanford's What Matters essay don’t reveal such inner thoughts.
One way you can stand out and express vulnerability is by writing about failures and insecurities.
These failures should not be caused by your judgment. It should clearly be a failure that happened despite all your best efforts. The ‘effort’ should be narrated, and the scale of the problem addressed before mentioning the failure.
Authentic communication is the leadership trait that I have captured in the Stanford What Matters and Why MBA Application Essay on leadership.