Some people argue that successful leaders in government, industry, orother fields must be highly competitive. Other people claim that in order to besuccessful, a leader must be willing and able to cooperate with others.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns withyour own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. Indeveloping and supporting your position, you should address both of the viewspresented.
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This statement talks about the situation that will build a successfulleader, no matter in government, industry or other fields. The author presents twokinds of idea exist, which contribute success to competition or cooperaterespectively. We can easily find some examples like the competition betweenApple and Microsoft which made Steve Jobs became a successful leader. On thecontrary, cooperation between U.S. and Canada governments makes blossom ofeconomy in both countries come true, which validates the second view of point.Actually, as for my opinion towards this issue, I don't think we should regardcompetition and cooperation as totally opposite things. I'll show that thesetwo seemingly ambivalent concepts are essentially the same idea.
Of course, some business leaders were built by the fierce competitionbetween companies. Generally speaking, competitive milieu will always bringmuch pressure to the firms, and as a consequence, firms are more likely topolish their equipment and also do innovative research. We can imagine ahypothetic monopolist who has much market power, which is illegal in U.S.,doesn't have any competitors. In order to make more and more monopoly profits,it will charge higher price. And it will decide to make a shortage in themarket due to producing less. In this sense, not only the monopolist slow downproduction, but also cut down the finance in innovation department. Thisphenomenon is called "X-inefficiency" in economics. Eventually, thiswill cause huge problem, and lead to many negative influences to the society. Therefore,competitions are necessary for a leader to succeed.
Conversely, willingness and availability of cooperation are important toleaders as well. This is why our nation always wants to be friends with othercountries. Things will become horrible if one nation become a commonlyrecognized enemy by all the others. An example of North Korea can explain itclearly. North Korea's actions about nuclear weapons make it drop into a toughdilemma. Almost no other country in the world has the gut to be friend with itbecause even the United Nations recognizes it as one of the most dangerous areain the world. It loses the trust from others totally, and every other countrythinks it may use nuclear weapons any time without responsibilities. To make anation strong and accepted by others, leaders must set up good relationshipbetween nations and build up mutual trust.
Nevertheless, these two parts are actually the same idea. To understandit, you can think about the idiom "too big to fail". Although thismeans a big company won't get bankrupt because of the reputation in thesociety, and if it fails, bad effects will cause huge trouble to the world, Iwant you to consider a specific situation that is relevant to our topic.Imagine in the financial crisis in 2008, GM was about to fail. But its formercompetitors like Chrysler and Honda even wants to save GM and try their best toprevent it from getting bankrupt. They do this cooperation thing because allthese companies buy some same products, say, muffle, from the same seller.Since GM has a huge demand for muffles from that muffle producer, if GM getsbankrupt, the muffle producer is also likely to fall. As a result, other carcompanies how buy muffles from the same producer will face the dilemma lackingmuffles. To sum up, even if these firms are competing to each other, neither ofthem wants the other fail. They will finance and cooperate with each other inmany specific situations.
Whether a successful leader needs cooperation or competition? Both of thetwo parts are significant for a successful firm, because each part will buildthe firm getting more and more influential. And the more influential a firm is,the convergence of cooperation and competition will hold. |