competition and cooperation

"While some leaders in government, sports, industry, and other areas attribute their success to a well-developed sense of competition, a society can better prepare its young people for leadership by instilling in them a sense of cooperation."


Which is a better way to prepare young people for leadership: developing in them a spirit of
competitiveness or one of cooperation? The speaker favors the latter approach, even though
some leaders attribute their success to their keenly developed competitive spirit. I tend to
agree with the speaker, for reasons having to do with our increasingly global society, and with
the true keys to effective leadership.
The chief reason why we should stress cooperation in nurturing young people today is that,
as tomorrow's leaders, they will face pressing societal problems that simply cannot be solved
apart from cooperative international efforts. For example, all nations will need to cooperate in
an effort to disarm themselves of weapons of mass destruction; to reduce harmful emissions
which destroy ozone and warm the Earth to dangerous levels; to reduce consumption of the
Earth's finite natural resources; and to cure and prevent diseases before they become global
epidemics. Otherwise, we all risk self-destruction. In short, global peace, economic stability,
and survival of the species provide powerful reasons for developing educational paradigms
that stress cooperation over competition.
A second compelling reason for instilling in young people a sense of cooperation over
competition is that effective leadership depends less on the latter than the former. A leader
should show that he or she values the input of subordinates--for example, by involving them in
decisions about matters in which they have a direct stake. Otherwise, subordinates might grow
to resent their leader, and become unwilling to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the
leader's mission. In extreme cases they might even sabotage that mission, or even take their
useful ideas to competitors. And after all, without other people worth leading a person cannot
be a leader let alone an effective one.
A third reason why instilling a sense of cooperation is to be preferred over instilling a sense
of competition is that the latter serves to narrow a leader's focus on thwarting the efforts of
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competitors. With such tunnel vision it is difficult to develop other, more creative means of
attaining organizational objectives. Moreover, such means often involve synergistic solutions
that call for alliances, partnerships, and other cooperative efforts with would-be competitors.
Those who would oppose the speaker might point out that a thriving economy depends on a
freely competitive business environment, which ensures that consumers obtain high-quality
goods and services at low prices. Thus key leadership positions, especially in business,
inherently call for a certain tenacity and competitive spirit. And, a competitive spirit seems
especially critical in today's hyper-competitive technology-driven economy, where any leader
f~iling to keep pace with ever-changing business and technological paradigms soon fails by
the wayside. However, a leader's effectiveness as a competitor is not necessarily inconsistent
with his or her ability to cooperate with subordinates or with competitors, as noted above.
In sum, ifwe were to take the speaker's advice too far we would risk becoming a world
without leaders, who are bred of a competitive spirit. We would also risk the key benefits of a
free-market economy. Nevertheless, on balance I agree that it is more important to instill in
young people a sense of cooperation than one of competition. The speaker's preference
properly reflects the growing role of cooperative alliances and efforts in solving the world's
most pressing problems. After all, in a world in which our very survival as a species depends
on cooperation, the spirit of even healthy competition, no matter how healthy, is of little value to any of us.







It is universally acknowledged that a well-developed sense of competition can contribute much to leaders' success in different areas such as government, sports and industry. While, as the trend of globalization, the cooperative sense has became an increasingly important and indispensable element to success of individuals, communities or even nations. As result of that, the cultivation of both competitive and cooperative awareness is of exaggerated importance for a society aiming to better preparing its future leaders.

Unless with the sense of competition, leaders of any society can never lead his/her people to win in the competitive world. Competition is the essential driving force of each individual and thus motivation of society progress which is composed of individuals. The competitive impulse fosters the desire for excellence. It is the responsibility of social leaders to create a healthy atmosphere of competition under which the subsequent improvements will generate. This can be illustrated by transformation of Chinese market policy. Decades ago, the planned economy policy was praised by Chinese leaders. This policy in which government played a key role to run entire business of nation is featured as absolute equality and eliminates any chance for competition. Unfortunately, these government-run businesses are ineffective due to lack of competition and then result in low productive capability and poor welfare of entire population. Realizing the disadvantages of such policy and desiring to reverse the straggling situation in China and catch up with developed countries, leaders have decided to transform the old economic system killing the spirit of competition into the new one encouraging competitive awareness. Individuals and companies alike for sake of survival in competition must continue to improve their services and products, and consequently, the entire society prospers, at least economically. Owing to the vitality of competitiveness, China can experience the prosperity than ever before.

However, to lead his people to win in a competition against external competitors, a leader must have the ability to enhance cooperation among them. Competition is not always a good thing to have, which can not and does not produce win-win situation. On the contrary, through cooperation with others, all participants can benefit from it. In business field, teamwork as whole can naturally produce an overall greater productivity through the concept of "synergy" The task of a good business leader is to set a common goal and corresponding rewards by which his teammates are motivated to interact with their colleagues towards a collective efforts. Zhang ReiMing- CEO of Glanze and a very famous entrepreneur in China, who is well-known as a cheerleader in the personal interview of CCTV3 2006 has said (and I paraphrase) that "there is no special knack for me to success. What I has done just make my employees feel better about themselves and let every single person in the company must understand the essence of the business and then create an environment in which they respect and cooperate with others. Scarcely have all the people been combined together firmly, when maximum potentials of them can be extracted and our tasks can be accomplished effectively and efficiently". Just as the famous man mentioned, skills of motivating both individuals and team as a whole are a grave challenge to but, more importantly, necessary capability of an outstanding leader.

Notwithstanding as seemly distinctive concepts, sense of competition and cooperation are dependent on each other. Actually, as an excellent competitor, not only can he compete with others who exceed him in some aspects without fears and jealousy but he should breed the spirit of cooperation, willingness to help each other and nurture one's feeling of community. It is the increasingly fierce competition in human society that acts as the catalyst promoting intensely cooperative desire.

In summary, to be qualified and successful leaders, individuals should be equipped with sense of competition and cooperation together.