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

Ironically, the fundamental step of leadership is to be a team player first before a team leader. However, an urge to push oneself over and over again is what drives one to be better and do better. The prompt suggests that the best way to get the young generation ready for leadership positions in the government, industry or other sectors is by instilling a sense of cooperation rather than competition in them. In my opinion, I mostly disagree with this suggestion and argue that young people need to understand the significance of cooperation and apply it in real life but also never underestimate the ground competition holds for two reasons.

To begin with the cooperation among team members, in a new study published in “Chaos,” it is found that people who cooperated with other members of the team for a long period are more likely to emerge as team leaders in the group. In addition, their cooperative behaviour is likely to be imitated by other group members. And, of course, as Charles Darwin found, species that cooperated with their group members most effectively were most likely to survive over species that didn’t. Bottom line: cooperation may be an especially effective way for leaders to gain influence and for groups to be successful.

Moving ahead, the best part of the competition is that through it we discover what we are capable of—and how much more we can do than we ever believed possible. For Instance, if we look at the example of a phenomenal Korean boy band Bangtan Sonyeondan (BTS), their journey started from a stark bankrupt company, Bighit Entertainment, whose previous artists were kind of a flop. Bang Si Hyuk the CEO of the company never gave up on hopes of finding some great artists through whom he could demonstrate the artist’s personality in his music. Eventually, he assembled members and the journey began, just like other fledgeling artists, they struggled a lot in the beginning because of their similarities with other boy bands from other enterprises, they were maligned and assailed on the internet, they were harshly treated on the TV shows by the MCs who were bribed by other agencies, and other companies also tried many a time to propose them to work under them but the Bighit was able to aggressively market BTS as an ideal group that could empathise with their fans and the listeners could find peace and comfort in their voices. In 2013, BTS launched its single album “2 Cool 4 Skool”. What was since followed is a windfall for both the company and the band members, and a cultural wave that has established Korea as the place with one of the most happening music scenes in the world. BTS helped Bang’s company rapidly rise to a powerful position in terms of both music and business. Now it’s a multi-billion company with a new name HYBE. Hence, as the example depicts, no competition and no progress.

In a nutshell, it is a hard nut to crack if comparing cooperation and competition because both play a dramatically fundamental role in paving the way to lead and eventually, success. However, no one can negate the fact that even though competitors have doubts, competitors have fear and competitors have worries but competitors don’t let these feelings stop them. The fight to be better and bring better continues because it is not all about survival but betterment.