Which is better way to prepare young people for leadership:developing in them a sense of cooperation,or that of competitiveness?The speaker prefer the former approach. I concede that instilling in young persons a sense of cooperation is an effective way to prepare them for leadership.However,in my view,the speaker overlooked the importance of the sense of competition.Both cooperation and competition are critical to develop young people? leadership.

Undoubtedly,the sense of cooperation is an important quality of leadership.On the one hand,Leaders are responsible for creating an environment in which the overall effectiveness of the team reaches its highest.Without cooperation,leaders could not accomplish such a goal.For example,in the Manhattan Project,Julius Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi,as leaders of the research,not only made great contributions for solving theoretical and experimental problems of nuclear physics they faced,but also created a good atmosphere of cooperation,in which many gifted physicists involved could work well with others.Therefore the first atomic bomb could be  produced so successfully.On the other hand,as tomorrow? leaders,young people will face urgent social problems that cannot simply be solved apart from cooperative international efforts.For instance,all nations should cooperate in an effort to disarm themselves of weapons of mass destruction;to reduce consumption of the unrecyclable natural resources;and to eradicate poverty.Otherwise,we all risk self-destruction.In short,the sense of cooperation is a necessary quality of good leaders.

However,the sense of competition is another significant quality of leadership,which is tantamount to the one of cooperation. First,competition would be the driving force to progress for a team.Memebers will feel threatened if they find themselves left behind by others.And everyone in the team would maximally exploit his/her potential to enhance competitiveness.So the team would finally advance due to competition.Second,lacking of healthy competition,the members of a team might be less motivated to accomplish their own missions independently，and even become reliant on others excessively，gradually losing the ability to think critically.Ultimately,the competitiveness of the whole team would be weakened.Finally,the competition could also serve as a mechanism  for determining the most capable leader of a team or group.In a fair and competitive society,the most competent individual would be selected through competition.If he/she becomes the leader of team,the team would make great progress based on the importance of a distinguished leader for a team.Thus,the leaders of today society,which is fair and competitive,should have the sense of competition.Otherwise,the team would risk stagnating or developing slowly.

All in all,to prepare young people for leadership,we should stress instilling in them not only a sense of cooperation,but the one of competition as well.A leader with the sense of cooperation could make all the members work well with others to achieve the same goal.While competition is the antithesis of cooperation,the need or desire to compete with other is a common impetus that motivates individuals to organize into a group and cooperate with other to form a stronger competitive force.In short,both of them are required for leadership.

In sum,I fundamentally agree that the speaker? stress on the sense of cooperation.However,the importance of the sense of competition should not be neglected. Cooperation and competition are mutually exclusive and both of them are critical to prepare young people for leadership.