149. In any field—business, politics,education, government—those in power should be required to step down after fiveyears.
Write a response in which you discuss yourviews on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. Indeveloping and supporting your position, you should consider the possibleconsequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequencesshape your position.
This issue about whether the leaders orthose in power of any field should step down after 5 years is fairly acomplicated one to discuss. There are many advantages within the tenure systemfor a good leadership than the life tenure one. Therefore, I agree with thespeaker generally. However, in different situations, there may be somequestions about the length of the term and the consecutive term issue, whichrequire us for better to make a case-by-case analysis.
As implemented in many nations, especiallyin the government systems, the tenure system limiting the term of the leadersis considered more valuable than the life long one. From the long-timeexperience of the history, we get to understand the flaws within the lifetenure system: it is not good for the field to make new breaks; the leaders maynot be motivated enough to put 100% effort on the job since they will always bethe one in power; also, some people consider the life tenure system sometimesmay turn to become some kind of autocracy, bad for our democratic society. Forexample, I've read one study concerning about the life tenure system of thejudges in the Supreme Court of America, concerning about the dangers to thedemocratic systemm. In the light of these issues, the tenure system, as thewriter of this issue suggests, has some merits for us. Given the term longenough for those in power to show their talent and make difference if theyreally want to, this policy effectively reduce the risks that the governors arenot motivated into their job, and even promote them to act efficient in theirlimited time of power. Also, after the spontaneous leaving of former leader,the new one may bring in new concepts and ideas, which will probably replenishthe group with fresh power and boost it in a new orientation. Take Welch in GEas an example. Since Welch was selected as the new leader of GE, new conceptsof management and marketing had been brought in. As a result, the profit of GEhas been boosted from 1.6 billion dollars to 12.7 billion dollars in 2000. AsObama proposed, we need changes, changes to be better, and the new leaders canachieve that.
Despite the positive aspects of the tenurepolicy discussed above, there are some possible concerns within this issue aswell. For example, when the original leaders are the best of all, and almost noone can do a better job than them, should we let them go away and bring thepoor guys in? Steve Job, the big star in his time, is considered the only onewho can lead Apple to success, due to his talent, his ability and his bigreputation around the world. He almost get respects from any single field, fromthe merchants in business industry to the politicians, making him a real irreplaceableone for Apple in people's mind. In such situation, the leader shifting systemis definitely considered to be silly. One another situation when the policy ofthe people in power requires long time to function, such as the macroeconomicpolicy driven by the Federal Reverse Governor, 5 years may not be enough for agood work of the policy, therefore, making the shifting of the leaders not areasonable option as well. In the light of these two cases, we can witness theflaws in this tenure policy, therefore, we should ruminate the optimal periodfor a term and set up some additional methods for help, such as the consecutiveterm policy, in order to keep the good leaders for a longer time to functiontheir policies. In this way, the system, no matter the business, the education,and the government system, can be guaranteed a relatively good-quality job.
In conclusion, the tenure policy of 5 yearsproposed by the speaker is valuable, considering the fresh ideas brought by thenew leaders, and the help on maintenance of a democratic system. One the otherhand, some flaws within this policy should also be witnessed, in the light ofsome irreplaceable leaders, and some long-term policies. Additional policies aresuggested to also be created to compensate the flaws of the tenure policy.