Unfortunate but true, there is no individual of this world flawless. Great success, fame and wealth, awe and respection from subordinates can all addle an initially wise and
cool-minded leader. The availability of long-term leadership makes things worse by granting these leaders sufficient time and power to abuse success. And the veneration and admiration from staff fail to warn leaders against self-righteousness before the whole thing goes out of control. Though sometimes things are not that bad, and the long-term leadership does to some extent manage to keep the enterprise in stability, it does not follow that the enterprise benefits from it anyway. Actually, the so-called stability is a veiled rigidity, which dominates with the inevitable limitation of its leader. Things are quite different when periodic leadership is introduced. By maintaining proper competative mechanism, the enterprise is always able to be repleted with fresh blood and new leading ideologies. Newly emerged leaders bring new way of leading and managing, and they are more likely to keep in better touch with time as well. In order to gain recognition and authority, new leaders tend to avoid the shortcomings of their predecessors and bring more welfare to staffs. On the other hand, staffs are also encouraged to work more actively for promotion. This compulsory shift in leadership effectively invigorates the enterprise and consequently drives it for bigger success.
Five years’s period is proper for average leadership. Longer term will ossify the enterprise while shorter one may call it under instability. It takes time for new leaders to get familiar with position as well as the running of the enterprise, and their new ideas might not take effect as soon as employed. And the competition for leadership, if carried out too frequently, will also distract the enterprise from its routine jobs. It is hard to imagine that promising staffs can concentrate on their work for the enterprise rather than go all out for courting support from subordinates and appreciation from senirors. Anyway, enterprises differenciate from each other in nature and it is absurd to set an inflexible term to everyone of them categorically. The decision factors should include the average time for any new policy to take effect, evolution of the enterprise in society and so forth.
Neither absolute stability nor rash alternation will lead to the success of any enterprise. In order to keep relatively stable composition and at the same time preventing it from any rigidity, enterprises should work out proper term for leadership to ensure their success.
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