issue46 leadership

Francis07UID: 2185659

ISSUE46
"While some leaders in government, sports, industry, and other areas attribute their success to a well-developed sense of competition, a society can better prepare its young people for leadership by instilling in them a sense of cooperation."

The speaker contends that although many leaders in some given fields attribute their success to a sense of competition, it is better to prepare a young prospective leader with a sense of cooperation.  However, in my observation, since the main function of a leader is to (elicit?) stimulate the team's potential energy with all his efforts; to ordain what a sponser sponsor should ordain; and to achieve what individuals can not achieve, these two senses of competition and coorperation should call for a balance in the training of a prospective leader.

Firstly, the sense of competition is essential to this society because it provides a method to measure success and an easy access for the competitors to know their weak points.  Without competition, a manufactory could not know whether his products are good enough to be sold on the markets.  For example, if a manufactorer could not find out that another producer is selling goods with better quality and lower prices, it would be meaningless for him to continue his production, at least he should change his method of producing by introducing new technologies or reducing the cost, etc.  In the field of politic, elections are conducted through public competitions to choose the better president and the better policy.  The citizens will feel it quite fair to have their own choices in a democratic society.  Otherwise, without such competition, the people will not know what their next government's police will be, and they will feel cheated if the policy is not meeting their needs.  Other examples such as NBA or The Great Bowl could really help a teams of sportsmen feel the great honor of success.  And on the other hand, it could also help the loser find what they are still lacking of, and try to win the next time.

However, placing to much emphysis on the sense of competition and overlooking the importance of coorperation will be very dangerous for the whole team.  If a CEO doesn't try his best to make his coworkers work in a harmony and neglect the nags?/quarals?/disputes? among his employees, the company, therefore, could hardly work in an efficiency.  For example, if two workers of different departments of a logistic company is have trouble with each other, and one of the department is waiting for the other to provide them with their products for further produce, they former would probably try to delay the deadline and this would finally result in the delay of the whole production process.  So, no matter how competitive a leader could be, he should always have a clear mind that it is through harmony of the group can his sense of competition work.  The cohesion of a group is the basis for productivity.

Only when a leader realizes the importance of both senses and attains these capabilities can he help the group achieve the greatest success.  And it is also benefit for a competitive and cohesive group to have compeititions within the group.  During the competitions, the members of the group could learn from others and the group could even develop itself into a much stronger one.  

In a word, without competition, a coorperative mechanism could not find what they need to improve and will hardly obtain success.  However, without coorperation, a competitive group is operating by individuals and could now bring out a whole group's energy a group should obtain.  Therefore, to prepare a leader into a more powerful one, both the senses of competition and coorperation should be taught seriously.