Do Leaders Need Competition?

by Steve Ibbotson

Just listening to the FAN 960 as I'm sitting here in the office and as part of their golf report, they were considering how Phil Mickelson has not become the world's #1 golfer since the Tiger Woods debacle. Everyone thought he was poised to be move right into top spot if/when Tiger faded, yet the lefty has not been the power everyone expected. Perhaps Mickelson needed Tiger in order to play his best?

I have wondered the same thing about WestJet (Canadian equivalent of SouthWest Airlines). Air Canada has been a perpetual disaster in most ways - customer service, repeated financial help from the government, etc. Yet I believe if they ever did cease operations - as most companies with their track record, financial issues, outrageous contractual obligations, etc would - WestJet might not be far behind. I believe WestJet lives and in fact, succeeds, largely because they have a competitor, Air Canada.

A number of years ago, there was a serious builder in our town who started a construction boom. Soon there was a good competitor, a business that went from a one-man painting company to becoming another serious home builder, restaurant/hotel builder, etc. Now, one of these builders has disappeared from the scene and while builder #2 still is building homes in Three Hills, a number of small local contractors seem to be just as prevalent as seven years ago when there was the two-man building war... in small town TH of all places!

Oh yes, and I'll say it before someone else does: Three Hills and area have eight strongly evangelical local churches in a town of 4000. Really?

So I'm asking the question: Do Leaders Need Competition?
(I'll offer an answer in a future blogpost)