[YB-2] 7月13日作业 by sunxcint

sunxcintUID: 2654472

Whether the ability to be consistent is the most essential quality to a leader and a leader who is usually influenced by popular opinions will be accomplished is always controversial. Yet, it is significant and desirable to analyze this topic comprehensively. Undeniably,  a leader who will always adapt to the popular opinion without any principles and objectives born will not be an effective leader. However, leadership is naturally associated with politics, the activity full of argument and compromise.Thus , sometime an effective leader, as a temporary tactic, has to yields to certain pressures and betray their principles and objectives.

To begin with, it is true that  an outstanding leader must bear particular principles and objectives in the heart and always be ready to practice them. Principles and objectives are such vigorous factors that lack of them a leader could not always ensure their success. One example aptly illustrate this point involves Cyrus West Field, the leader of  the Atlantic Telegraph Company which committed to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable. Against all odds, Field persisted tenaciously in  the accomplishment of the project even if the first cable broke down only several weeks after finished. As a result, the transatlantic communication, which could be achieved only by ships , was sped up  to within minutes and the two continents were connected into one world.

Beyond this concession, however, I still cannot totally agree on this statement because it seems to argue that for a leader ,the ability of consistency is the most important quality. Admittedly, this quality does be essential. Nevertheless, there are still some other qualities such as domain knowledge, confidence, affability , all of which are indispensable and only being combined together can qualify the success of the leadership. Domain knowledge refers to the intellectual preparation of a leader; Confidence is the source of strength in front of troubles and frustration; affability can unit the whole team as one rope. Besides, there is usually a distinct form of leadership in each realm which is decisive to the success and thus might be more essential than the ability of consistency. For business realm, this is the leadership which  achieves the goal of profit maximization for a firm's shareholders; the political leadership concerns the means a leader uses to wield his or her power;social-spiritual leaders should put high emphasis on their ability to aspire others.

Finally, perhaps the most importantly, the speaker seems to fail to take into account the complexity of leadership. Generally, a leader is be behalf of certain interest groups and leadership is always tightly related to politics, the subtle and sophisticated essence of which decides that it is impossible for an effective leader to be invariant confronting the shifts of popular opinions, especially popular opinions from his interest group. Bush , the former president of the US, was always emerging as a consistent anti-terrorism fighter on his presidency. But meanwhile he is also a representative of neo-conservatives, whose behind is the great interest of big financial institutions. These financiers advocated in front of the president that the market would automatically return to equilibrium and needed no government regulations. Bush then had to give way to this opinion and adopt the financial policy they referred to.

From the analysis made above,  I concede that for a leader the ability of remain consistently is necessary and desirable. Nevertheless, it should not be the unique decisive factor to qualify the success of a leader. In the final analysis, leadership , associated with politics, is always complicated and sophisticated, a leader should cultivate comprehensive qualities to be accomplished.