The best way for a society to prepare its young people for leadership in government, industry, or other fields is by instilling in them a sense of cooperation, not competition.

The statement claims that the promoting of sense of cooperation, rather than competition, for young people for future leadership is the most beneficial for society. In today's society, admittedly, an individual can hardly achieve major accomplishment just from the effort of his or her own. However, this does not preclude the necessity for developing a sense of competition among the young generation. In my opinion, I would agree with the speaker in instilling a sense of cooperation, but the emphasis on competition is still needed.

I agree with the statement in a sense that nearly every major accomplishment must require some form of cooperation between individuals and organizations. And a correct sense of cooperation among leaders, thus, is critical for correct decision making to increase efficiencies in problem-solving. Consider the smartphone that we use every day, for example; none of the smartphones can be manufactured from a single company or even a single country. Processors might come from the US while batteries and screens are produced in South Korea and the entire phone is, ultimately, assembled in China. The very reason behind this inter-company and international cooperation is efficiency. Since firms and countries are specialized in certain fields, such concentration makes them highly efficient in the fields that they are good at. Likewise, science and research follow the same pattern as smartphone production since every institute is specialized in a limited amount of fields, in which it can solve problems and issues much more efficiently than in other institutes. Because these cooperative decisions are the direct and indirect results from the executives or leaders in companies, organizations and countries, instilling the future leaders with a sense of cooperation is, thus, important in guarantee efficiencies in problem-solving.

Not only does cooperation help increase efficiency in problem-solving, but it is also a bridle for competition. The correct amount of emphasis on cooperation is critical in preventing over-competition, which can be harmful to the overall social productivity, from happening. Since resources in a society, such as natural minerals, time and money, is limited, over-competition will likely cause extreme inefficiencies in using those resources. Just like the smartphone example mentioned in the last paragraph, had companies or countries stopped the supply of their technologies or products, others would be forced to develop their own. By repeating the process of developing the same technology, time, money and other precious resources, which could be devoted to some other more meaningful fields, are wasted. In short, promoting a sense of cooperation for future leaders gives us more control over the competition to prevent it from develope unchecked.

For those who disagree with the statement might argue that competition is the main driving force for progress since competition forces companies to develop new products and lower prices in the market. Thus, the positions as leaders or executives, especially in the world of business calls for the ability of competition. As in today's competitive society, any organizations with leaders that failed to keep up with the competition is likely to fall as well, and it is the competition that forced the happening of innovations and progress. However, the emphasis on competition is not inconsistent with the need to instilling a sense of cooperation. As oftentimes, competition and cooperation come together and a balance between would yield the best result.

In a nutshell, if we took the speaker's claim to the extreme side of cooperation, we would risk the society to be lack of competition and as a result a lack of innovation and progress. On a balance, I agree with the claim that a sense of cooperation is critical for the future leaders, and we shall also keep competition in mind to make efficient and meaningful progress.