The effectiveness of a country’s leaders is best measured by examining the well-being of that country’s citizens.
The ultimate goal of a leader of a country is to lead his people to become opulent. Whether the effectiveness of a country’s leader is best measured by examining the well-being of that country’s citizens can be weighed in many aspects. From my perspective, I do concur with part of the statement, yet, there are other aspects that we will discuss.
Admittedly, some people will argue that the effectiveness of a country’s leader is measured by his accomplishment. For example, the supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, develop many nuclear weapon technologies to change his status in his country and peninsula’s situation. However, most people in North Korea suffer from poverty and malnourishment. Therefore, the statement is cogent to some extent.
First of all, the development of a country can not leave any aspect behind and instead only focusing on the progress of certain aspects. Take the example of North Korea again; people suffer from poverty, low-literacy, and insufficient nutrition. Although the development in the weapon can help North Korea establish its status on the international negotiation and claim that they are strong enough to defeat any invasions, people in the country are not beneficial from that progress. Therefore, the effectiveness of a country’s leader is not qualified to be stated as a competent or heroic leader since he fails to take care of his people and satisfy the basic need of the public.
On the other hand, the welfare of people is one of the important indicators of the effectiveness of a leader, yet, other aspects are also essential to be considered in the assessment. For example, as a leader of a country, who is also considered as a public figure, the expectation of moral standards on them is generally higher than ordinary people. The moral standard represents how a leader to be a good paragon to his people and decreases many potential risks of society, such as crime rate, infidelity, and ethical problems. Consequently, when evaluating the effectiveness of a leader, his morality also plays a pivotal role. Because as a public figure, the behavior is scrutinized by citizens, and people may imitate those behaviors.
To sum up, the position of the statement is plausible to some extent. Base on my exposition mentioned above, the general welfare of citizens is a substantial measurement to assess the ability of a leader. However, other factors, such as morality, should also take into consideration. Therefore, the effectiveness of a leader will not only be measured by only one aspect but more comprehensively.
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