In any field business politics education government those in power should be required to step down after five years

The quality of a good leader is not limited to how well he/she exercises the power, but is also decided by how much he/she succeeds in paving the way for upcoming better potentials towards that power. The claim that those in power need to step down after five years does hold true in my opinion. After all, shouldn’t all good things come to an end in order to make way for better things? It wouldn’t be wrong to state that a better change is the need and necessity of any field to move forward, since change is the only constant.

The need for people in power to step down after their years of service is quite prevalent in many democratic governments of the world. The US government holds its presidential election in every four years and forms new cabinet of ministers. This shows no matter how well the presidential tenure has been the past four years; it is important to make way for a new and hopefully better government. In contrast, an autocratic rule – like the North Korean regime- is often condemned by people for its rigidity towards ruling by just one family for as prolonged period of time as possible.

Similarly, the idea of stepping down or retiring also seems to be necessary in the field of business as well. A good CEO is capable of maintaining the level of progress that his predecessor made, uplifts the company success to unprecedented level and also successfully manages to find a better successor for his post when his time comes to an end. This opens up a window for new talent to be added in the company, and with new talent there are possibilities for new insights and energy, and ultimately a higher profit value. A time span of five years does seem quite an adequate time for a person to be holding a position of power in the field of business, as this time frame will help in preventing a person with ineptness to hang on to the power for long time even in the worst-case scenario.

Moreover, this notion of stepping down from a position of power also seem to work successfully even in the field of education. Let’s take an example of the administration section of St. Xavier’s College, a college run by Jesuit society. In every five years, the current principal steps down and a new father joins the college as principal. This creates an environment of pressure for the new father principal to maintain the quality of education system that the previous father maintained, and also provides a plethora of opportunity for the new principal to bring out novel ideas for the betterment in the college. Also, with addition of new members in the college family, there is always introduction of new culture and values as well.

Therefore, it is indeed true that in any area- ranging from business to government - the people in power should gracefully mark their exit while welcoming the new ones. But, the time frame of five years for any person to hold the power might not seem as the most appropriate for all the fields, as this may sometimes result in instability and create a possibility for constant power battle. Nevertheless, with flexible time frame, it wouldn’t be imprudent to conclude that for better change to arrive, the old souls will have to step down.