[风雨与共] Issue习作 Issue 70 by【7】

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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."

Should the leader step down after five years in power, no matter in what area? The speaker agreed so, because he believed that the revitalization through new leader is the surest path to success for any enterprise. However, I disagree with this claim because it is too assertive, and the change of leadership isn't so sure to bring about success.

Admittedly, in most conditions the leader should abdicate to new ones after a certain period (not certain to be 5 years), in order to replete some fresh blood into the management, and this is also significant to prevent totalitarian.  Consider the American's president elections, which are held every four years.  Such a regulation is for the purpose to keep the country's management updated with social development and special situation of certain episode.  And it is also a guarantee for the democracy, through which the people's attitudes can be reflected timely.  According to custom, a president shouldn't stay in power more than two terms, i.e. 8 years.  After Franklin Roosevelt, it was even as a new law written into the American Constitution, out of consideration for risk of power centralizing.  Other fields, such as business, or education, would be like politics, where newly mind and democracy are also needed.

However, sometimes the leader is so preeminent that no one else can take his/her place.  For instance, the Apple Corporate's CEO, Steve Jobs, is the soul of Apple.  All the things of Apple, such as iPod, iPhone, iPad, or iMac, which made Apple successful, are born from Jobs' creative ideas.  Once, after Jobs left Apple because of the divergence of ideas about company management, Apple had ever fallen to the edge of bankrupt.  Only after Apple got Jobs back through buying his new business, NeXT, which Jobs created after he left Apple, Apple were brought back to life.  These clearly demonstrated Jobs' irreplaceable role for Apple.  And from this instance, we can see another fact, that the revitalization isn't fated to mean success.  Every change is accompanied by risks, the change of leadership is rather critical.

Or, sometimes the conditions need the leader to stay in power to insure the stability, rather than to confirm with the "five years" principle.  Franklin Roosevelt would be a proper example, who had been the president of America for four terms.  His longest holding of presidency in American History was because of both the circumstances of that time and people's expectation.  When he was elected as president in 1933, the nation was being bogged in the worst economic crisis in American history.  No sooner than Roosevelt's New Deal brought the nation's economy back to normal orbit, the World War II broke out in 1939.  At this time, what the nation needed is not a leader can bring innovation but a leader can keep steadiness and giving residents belief.  So that breaking the custom and to elect Roosevelt to continue as president is the best choice.

To sum up, according to discussed above, we could safely draw a conclusion that the revitalization through new leadership brings not only creativity but risks; whether the leader should abdicate depending on specific circumstances.  As for political leader, we should limit one person's time staying in power, except for some special conditions; otherwise nation's democracy may be endangered.