issue70

斑马慢蓝黑乱UID: 2788017

70 "In any profession—business, politics, education, government—those in power should step down after five years. The surest path to success for any enterprise is revitalization through new leadership."
The speaker asserts those in power in any profession should step down after five years because it helps revitalize the whole enterprise. At first glance, this opinion seems to be somewhat appealing, but further reflection tells me that I cannot agree with it for the following reasons.

Firstly, the former in power are more experienced, they know how to manage the organization and motivate its employees in a right way, their steady temperament makes them prestigious, in addition, the long term established relationships will help in taking up their work. This explains why more people would elect the former leader to serve for another term during the reelection, showing their beliefs on him. Thus two terms for them maybe proper because it makes full use of the leaders’ experience and other abilities.

Secondly, in order to play an important role, the leading group keeps good communication and understanding with understrappers, in other words, there should be a perfect chemical reaction between them. A proverb goes that new shoes hurt feet while the old ones are fitted. For example, as to a soccer team, you will always find that the good team keeps the great coach in a long term, such as Alex Ferguson of Man United, who is charging the ‘red evil’ more than 20 years and becoming the pronoun of the club now. Opposed to that, the names of the struggling club’s coaches are changing with the only constant is the bad performance, no wonder the reason is that each new coach comes with his new ideas and nobody can adapt it as quickly as possible, which results in non-improvements.

Admittedly, long term governing could cause too many social problems like corrupt and the threat for democracy, that’s why so many nations make mandatory provision of the term of the president. As we know, the coming of a new leader would always break the atmosphere of following the beaten track, what’s more, they can impose the group with new vitality. At the same time, the policies brought would help to correct the mistakes before.

To draw a conclusion, I don’t agree that in any profession—business, politics, education, government—those in power should step down after five years. We should offer more chances for them to bring into play their capability and prolong the years they govern into two terms may be the best way to deal with the issue.