To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethnical and moral standards.

 The speaker’s assertion that a public official must maintain the highest ethnical and moral standards seems compelling, but after careful consideration, we can see the argument has a fallacy. It mixed the public morality and personal morality. So, I disagree with the speaker’s viewpoint and believe it is public morality not the personal morality that is the most important factor decides the effectiveness of a public leader.

First, a public leader needs strong public morality to lead the country to the right way. Sometimes, doing the right thing is actually contradictory with the personal morality. For example, when a government needs to withhold information which relate to the national security, the leader should keep the things secret, and disclose information or even mislead the public. Complete forthrightness is very dangerous. Take the “ Manhattan project” as an example, President F.D. Roosevelt did not tell the public what the project was .Even some of the employees who were worked for the project did not know the true meaning of the project. Although FDR did not tell the truth, he successfully executed this plan and successfully defeated Japan, which lead the end of World War II. Another example may lend credence to my point. If trade friction happens between two countries, a leader who is kindhearted maybe yield to the pressure comes from the other side. Kindness maybe a good personal moral virtue, but may hurt the country.

 Secondly, even if the public leaders have some flaws in their personal morality, They were still successful leadership with many accomplishments.Take Bill Clinton as an example, his sex scandal was a sensation around 1998, and people all of the world were talking about his extra-marital affairs at that time. His behavior was criticized as a very poor display of personal morality but he was not impeached. After he stepped down, when we review his politic achievements, we find that he is still an excellent president who led American economy to grow successively 8 years. There is another example can support my viewpoint. Present Italian premier Berlusconi is famous at having affairs with a lot of girls. His naked photos are even be posted on the Internet and he is now frequently on the headlines of the Italian newspapers because of it. But he has also gained very high support rate among the Italian people. The most important thing is not the scandal of leaders. In fact, what the masses care about is whether the leader can execute very forceful policy that give the country a bright future and if he can improves the living standards.

From what has been discussed, we can see that the effectiveness of leader is not decided by the leader’s personal morality, but public morality. Even if some leaders have some disadvantages in his personal morality, it dose not influence achievement if can bring a country or a company a bright future.In a democratic society, if a leader wants to govern the country effectively, he should have the right public morality .Other important factors include his vision, adaptability, charisma, execution ability, and management skills. Personal morality may make him a better human being, but not a better political leader.