Claim: In any field—business, politics, education, government—those in power should step
down after five years
Reason: The surest path to success for any enterprise is revitalization through new leadership
Consecutive renewal of the incumbent in any institution, organization, and society do indeed
open up cleavages of rent-seeking, corruption, mannerism and so much more. It is pivotal
that in the end, all accomplishments are embedded in the particular society of its provenance
and therefore the usage of authority and power should speak to the common good and the
popular interest. It seems self-explanatory that there should exist mechanisms to revitalize the
existing forms of power through elections, appointments, and reforms. However, in this very
essay I will touch on the seemingly paradoxical perspective of the power—that it depends on
the occupation, industry, country, culture and much more on whether power should be
renewed. The idiosyncratic forces that all contribute to the formation of power and authority
demands a rather nuanced and intricate understanding of the leadership and the power it
holds.
Leadership can easily get routinized and hence out of favor for many citizens and the
populace. This is the very reason that the presidential system of many parts of the world
either limit the term to two four year term or one five year term. Even if the leadership may
not be guilty of political outrage—corruption, scandal, rent-seeking—the populace may
merely demand a new type of leadership to revitalize the country’s ideals, one that comes
with a vastly different ideology of the incumbent leader. Consider for example, the transition
for the Bush era to the election of the young and refreshing leader in the political arena,
Obama. As a developed and mature democracy, it was not entirely the leadership of Bush that
was a serious hazard to the US and its citizens. However, the desire among many Americans
in search for a figure that was not as hawkish as its present leader, one that could draw out its
troops in many of its foreign interventions that is ridding off the taxpayers’ money. They saw
in Obama a relevant figure that could accommodate such interests and needs, and therefore
heralded the transition to Obama administration.
There is also the case where the incumbent was directly associated with the fundamental
norms of democracy and the public good, where leaders are culpable of fraud, corruption,
rent-seeking, or ethical issues. The classical example was President Nixon’s Watergate
Scandal, where he lied straight up to his populace and was ousted accordingly. Also exists
cases where an executive position leader of Korean Airlines, stepped down from her place
because of ethical issues to her employees. The coups in South America and peasant riots for
collective action also speaks to the predominant and interminable corruption its political
leaders are capable of.
However, even considering all the dimensions of the possibilities of the leadership and the
power it has failing miserably, there are conditions that demand a decent amount of time for
the work of leadership to be realized. In other words, if one is in power, he or she should be
able to given autonomy and the benefit of the time to implement initiatives, policies and
measures to be able to prove that they are apt to do the job. For instance, a new and young
emerging democracy and the leader needs sufficient time to implement policies, construct a
national image, institutionalize a bureaucratic setting, and build competitive industries. If the
political leader is constantly interrupted by political rivals to step down and is under constant
political threat the stakes of the success of his or her leadership would significantly founder.
Specifically,
