Claim: In any fieldbusiness, politics, education, governmentthose in power should step down after five years.

Reason: The surest path to success for any enterprise is revitalization through new leadership. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based. ***

The idea of frequent replacement of leadership in an enterprise may sound as though it would encourage a constant influx of new ideas, thereby fostering a constantly vibrant and creative culture in that enterprise. In addition, through frequent replacement, leaders would be prevented from being able to move the focus of the enterprise from its true aims to their own interests. In a number of fields, systems based on frequent replacement of leaders have proven effective and healthy methods of organization. Certainly in some fields (such as politics and government) in which a well-established system of laws and principles provides a framework around which leadership must organize itself, it is more imperative that leaders be prevented from seeking personal enrichment than that they be allowed to provide long-term vision for the organizations they govern. Thus these leaders (of political systems) can be replaced every five years without causing undue disruption. However, the assertion that this pattern is advisable for any field is far too categorical. In business, for example, the drawbacks of a long-established leader are less inimical to the enterprise than they are in politics. For example, the effect of a CEO seeking to pad his pockets does injure his subordinates, but it simultaneously requires that the businesss bottom line be able to support his actionswhich implies a more successful business. Moreover, while a business does need to draw in new ideas in order to adapt to changes in its field, this often does not require constant replacement of leaders. An idea group of advisors to the leadership can provide a similar vitality. Since leading almost any business also requires a tremendous amount of skill and familiarity with the particular qualities of that business, and since acquisition of this familiarity can take a number of years, attempting to use new leadership as a constant source for new ideas could even be counterproductive. It could result not in innovation and revitalization, but in leadership that has insufficient knowledge of the enterprise being led and which changes focus so frequently as to make a company aimless and disorganized. It is likely that after a number of five-year replacement cycles in a business, an exasperated team of employees would develop an unofficial leadership system, in which a reliable, knowledgeable long-term employee would be relied upon as a de facto leader in place of the johnny-come-lately in power. It is far better in a business to combat the drawbacks of long-term leadership through regulation, or by putting pivotal issues to a committee, than it is to risk ignorant and rudderless leadership by replacement every five years. In education, the position of leader is less clearly defined. A university president is of course an example of a leader in education, but so is a principal of a grade or high school, or a professor in charge of a number of graduate students and classes of undergraduates. Because of the wide difference in the requirements of these positions, a blanket statement about the advisability of replacing those who hold them every five years cannot be made.

However, it does seem that a pattern can be detected among the various positions of educational leadership: that the more a leader functions as an educator and mentor to students, the greater the benefit of long-term service; and the more a leader functions as an administrator and authority over the institution, the greater the benefit of frequent replacement. A university president, for example, should be replaced regularlyperhaps not every five years, but more often than every career cycle; because renewal of leadership helps to modernize the institution and can prevent it from taking directions too personally determined by the leader. In addition, replacing the university president regularly allows the former president to return to her research and teaching activities; to continue her career as a professor. The same cannot be said, though, of a school principal. A principal functions best with a high degree of familiarity with her students, with their families, and with their community. This kind of familiarity cannot be gained by individuals who view their position as a temporary one, so it is difficult to argue that these leaders should be replaced so frequently. Still more clearly, those who work personally with students, such as professors working on research projects with graduate students, should not be frequently replaced as a matter of regulationsuch a requirement would be tantamount to a mandatory termination of the professors research, a ludicrous derailment of her career. Overall, it seems evident that requiring all educational leaders to be replaced every five years would be too extreme a policy for many positions. In general, while replacing leaders is often helpful, no categorical statement can be made which applies a fixed term of service to all leaders over all fields. The attempt to do so would overlook the vast differences among these fields and among the responsibilities involved in leading them.