Survey on leadership: nearly 40 percent of recipients prefer leaders who can bring benefit to the people

Chinese officials at different levels are facing more tough tests and new challenges with the advent of new times. China's Vice President Xi Jinping, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of Political Bureau, and member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, put forward the 'six major guidelines for leadership appointment' at the National Organization Work Conference convened earlier this year, which suggested appointing leaders at different levels must comply with the six steering rules: paying attention to the conducts, adhering to the outlook of scientific development, attaching importance to the actual work, getting close to the grass roots leadership, encouraging innovation and winning recognition and support from the general public.

Li Yuanchao, Minister of Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, a department under the Secretariat of CPC Central Committee responsible for staffing positions within the CPC, also echoed the six guidelines recently pointing out 'three reverences,' namely, reverences toward history, ordinary people and life. The 'six guidelines' and 'three reverences' are described by some observers as the wind vane erected for the Chinese leadership gearing for the new era.

People Daily online accordingly conducted a survey on China's leadership among its netizens from across the country, trying to find out the ideal leadership in ordinary people's minds and what the most desirable qualities are to be a popular leader, which has long been regarded top concerns closely related to the CPC leadership and the overall social development under the leadership of the CPC.

The findings of the survey indicated that, among the 31,502 interviewees, nearly 40 percent of them think the most important yardstick to judge the leadership is 'conferring benefit on society and the people.' In addition, the sense of innovation is also strongly appealed for, as more than 30 percent of the survey recipients deemed it equally important for the ideal leadership to be 'courageous enough to break through conventions and make innovation.' As is expected, ordinary people always show great concerns to 'the leaders' conduct,' and a leader with high integrity can always win enormous popularity among the ordinary people. Therefore almost 30 percent of the interviewees vote for the leaders having good conduct and working in the earnest way.

Many netizens also posted their opinions on the message board. Those who prefer the leadership with good virtues and conduct think only under the leadership of clean and upright officials, can the society progress along the right track, the people feel content, and the general social mode turn to be sound. A netizen with IP 61.135.208 said, 'altruism should be a basic standard to be a good leader, as only by giving up the strong sense of egoism and selfishness, can a leader contribute more to the society, and be more devoted to serving the people. Otherwise, he would decline into a corruptive official sooner or later.'

Some netizens, in the mean time, suggested it is necessary to build up and improve supervisory and regulatory systems to effectively monitor the behaviors of the leadership, in the event that the lack of efficient watch dog would create loopholes luring those officials with slack self-discipline to commit crimes. A netizen with IP 116.28.62 said in his posting, 'without the necessary regulations and disciplines, the officials concerned could act in the undesirable way, even if he is generally a good person, and such is human nature, that people will go wild and arrogant without restrictions set by rules. Therefore building a perfect regulatory mechanism will serve as a necessary step to compound an effective system to test and appoint the leadership.'

By People's Daily Online