In any profession—business, politics, education, government—those in power should step down after five years.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be

The speaker asserts that in any profession the powers-that-be should step down after five years, which I fundamentally disagree with. I think the statement over-generates about the issue of leaders’ term in office, which should be considered on a case-by-case base, as discussed below.

In the realm of business, in my opinion, there is no need to set a certain term for company chief executives. Business is inherently about meeting mundane short-term goals: deadlines for production, sales quota, profit margins, and so forth. It stresses on pragmatism—that is, getting the job done or paying attention to the “bottom line”. These sorts of emphasis on short-term interest make so-called tenure fly in the face of practice and have no sense. What concerns directors is only the maximization of profits and the high socioeconomic status in the target market. Any talent who has good ideas and inspirations to realize this goal could be got the potential of promotion and just come on the stage to show his talent. On the contrary, anyone who fails to live up to his or her initial promise, or threaten the firm’s bottom line or even the very survival must step down. Only in such an environment with continual stress and competition, the candidate with the most ambition and tenacity could be selected to keep the firm on the top of the wave and never be cast about in the sea of commerce without dear direction. Someone may contend with me saying that though a maximum of profit is critical, the chief executives should have a vision that goes far beyond mere profits to how the company could contribute meaningfully and lastingly to the community, to the broader economy, and the society as a whole. Hence a legislative tenure is necessary. And in my observation, many companies set certain tenure for CEO positions. However, the majority of companies set tenure no more than 3 years, which is too short to impose long-term projects or criticize some idealistic plans. Therefore my tuition is that companies only treat tenure as something on paper.

When it comes to the realm of politics and government, I think a term of 5 years is reasonable, whose benefits could be reflected in many countries’ political systems nowadays, such as America and China. For one thing, compared with business, politic games are based on long-term strategies on a social level of the entire nation. Any public policies or law must be carefully formulated, discussed practiced and modified several times before being imposed. It is a long process even more than one or two years. Therefore the administrator’s term in office should be long enough to ensure his direction could be imposed and carry out some consequences for others to value, instead of being abandoned in its nascent state by the next administrator. But a long tenure may also pose some risks of undue power for a less competitive administrator to preserve the leadership or to advance a useless agenda. Therefore, history proves that 5-year tenure is the best. Also, many countries regulate that any president could be in his office for 2 terms continuously, which I believe is also fair and rational. Were a president to hold the power for more than 10 years, he must have established a mature system for the country and stuck to it stubbornly, as the father of this policy. However, with the ever-developing and increasingly complex world situation, a policy imposed 10 years ago might have been out of date and should be weeded out, let alone its inherent bias and one-sided ideas that might deviate itself from the original goals so far. Besides, accompanied by the mature system, invariably appear gang conflictions, thereby carrying significant consequence—that is, bribe, corruption, demagoguery, and gradual the collapse of the democratic system. To avoid it, the new flood must be instilled in the high politic leadership group in every two terms.

In the realm of education, the issue is no less complete based on the distinction between elementary and secondary education, and higher education. As to the former, in my view, a leader term could be set according to the school system, for it is convenient for committees to assess the leader’s overall performance and achievements. For instance, considering the 6-year school system for elementary schools in China, the elementary school administrator could be evaluated based on the rank of school in the state, the enrollment rate to secondary school, and the satisfaction degree of parents in continuous 6 years during his term in office. Nevertheless, as to higher education, since universities and colleges are bureaucracies and vulnerable to political influence over what is taught and what is not, it may be better off for them, especially for the public ones, to the adjust education goals and patterns including the leadership group in accordance with the government’s education strategies.

In a final analysis, I suppose in never situation, the speaker should set a rigid term for all professions in that different professions have their typical character. However, from our grandest to our most rote, the final goal is to make every institute, agency, and company thrive and advance the national democratic process.