---
title: "Are You Worthy to Be the Leader?"
description: "Being the industry leader is a responsibility. When Huawei became the leader, Ren Zhengfei expressed his anxiety, saying that Huawei had entered the \"uncharted territory.\" This means that leaders must take on the responsibility of pioneering and exploring. In China, many industries are now in decline, and it is time for industry leaders to take responsibility and revitalize the industry. However, many Chinese companies that are already industry leaders still behave like \"big children,\" and such companies are not worthy of being leaders."
author: "刘春雄"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-07-15"
language: "en"
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---

# Are You Worthy to Be the Leader?

> Being the industry leader is a responsibility. When Huawei became the leader, Ren Zhengfei expressed his anxiety, saying that Huawei had entered the "uncharted territory." This means that leaders must take on the responsibility of pioneering and exploring. In China, many industries are now in decline, and it is time for industry leaders to take responsibility and revitalize the industry. However, many Chinese companies that are already industry leaders still behave like "big children," and such companies are not worthy of being leaders.

**Preface**
Being the leader is a responsibility.
Shortly after Huawei became the leader, Ren Zhengfei was filled with anxiety, saying that Huawei had entered the "uncharted territory."
Entering the "uncharted territory" means taking on the responsibility of pioneers and explorers, which is the responsibility that the leader must bear. Ren Zhengfei's speech at the National Science and Technology Innovation Conference can be seen as a declaration of responsibility by a leader.
If the leader does not progress, it will hinder the progress of the industry.
If you are the leader in China, you must bear the responsibility of being the leader in China; if you are the world leader, you must bear the responsibility of being the world leader.
Most industries in China have now entered a downward trend. It is time for industry leaders to take responsibility and revitalize the industry.
However, many Chinese companies are already industry leaders, but they still feel more like "big children." Although they are big, they are still essentially "children," with a childish air.
Such companies are not worthy of being leaders.
The problems that various industries in China are now facing are the responsibility of the leaders. Solving these problems is the unshirkable duty of the leaders.
> Should we rise upward or sink downward?
> An industry leader has an unshirkable responsibility to enlarge the industry and expand its living space.
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> The bigger the industry, the bigger the leader.
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> Years ago, Teacher Jin Huanmin criticized a certain industry leader for not being worthy of being the leader. The leader should enlarge the industry, but instead of moving upward, it moved downward, trying to crush the vibrant smaller players by going down, "beating XX into submission" and "always calling me number one." As a result, the leader has shrunk, and the second player is rising rapidly.
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> Trout said in the famous book "Marketing Warfare" that the leader's opponent is itself, and it must break through itself. The leader must have the courage to attack itself.
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> The leader's downward sinking is to compress the living space of the smaller players within the limited space of the industry, or even to monopolize the industry. Some leaders have actually achieved this, but such industries are bound to be revolutionized by outsiders.
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> For a long time in the past, the growth of leading companies in various industries in China had two sources:
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> First, the natural growth of the industry;
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> Second, compressing the living space of smaller players through price wars and other means.
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> In the past, there was generally more room for natural growth in industries, so relying on the incremental market could maintain natural growth.
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> Some industries have entered the mature stage, and leaders will resort to price wars. Because price wars are based on the "break-even point," smaller enterprises have a higher break-even point, so price wars are a means for large enterprises to "clean house." Now, most industries have achieved oligopoly, and those that should be cleaned up have been cleaned up. The remaining oligarchs have formed a "terrible balance," and it is impossible to clean up further. As long as no major mistakes are made, "beating XX into submission" is already very difficult.
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> If in the past competitive means were indeed conducive to cleaning up weaker enterprises, now doing so is a typical "downward sinking."
> **Leader, how can you be worthy of being the leader?**
> Being the leader means entering the "uncharted territory." What does entering the "uncharted territory" mean? It means doing things that have never been done before, doing what explorers should do.
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> How dangerous it is to enter the "uncharted territory"! Why do we still enter? Because the leader bears two major responsibilities: first, to enlarge the industry and expand its scale; second, to lead the industry forward and lead the industry to progress.
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> How to be the leader? I think at least four things must be done well:
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> First, attack upward for the industry and expand the living space for the industry. The leader is the ceiling of the industry. The higher the leader's ceiling, the bigger the industry. For example, it is difficult for smaller players to break through the leader's price band. If the leader presses the price band very low, the industry cannot be made very big. So why would the leader lower the price band of the old industry? Because the lower the price band, the more likely it is to crush the smaller players.
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> Gradually expanding new price bands, making the industry bigger, and giving smaller players more living space is actually beneficial to the leader in the long run.
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> Second, open up more new categories. The supply-side school believes that supply determines consumption. How big the industry is depends on what supply can be provided. In addition to known categories, if more categories can be opened up, the industry will be bigger. For example, before the herbal tea category was developed, the beverage market was not as big as it is now. Although herbal tea may have replaced some other beverage consumption, overall it expanded the beverage market.
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> Third, create new markets. Take Apple as an example. It is the leader in many IT fields, and some industries were created by it. Every time it creates a new market, in addition to its own share, it also drives the development of the entire industry.
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> Fourth, explore the "uncharted territory" and bear the risks of the industry. Walking in the "uncharted territory" is risky. In the past, China always had benchmarks to catch up with, and Chinese enterprises had the advantage of backwardness. The advantage of backwardness is to have "benchmarks," "take shortcuts," and "accelerate" to catch up. The risk is small, and the speed is fast.
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> It should be said that most industry leaders in China have already entered the world's forefront. At this time, they have indeed entered the "uncharted territory," and all progress means risk. Leaders must neither fear risk and not progress, nor blindly move forward regardless of risk.
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> In 2015, Ren Zhengfei proposed: "In an uncertain era, there must be a certain grip." That is to say, we must both bear risks and avoid risks.
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> In 2016, at the Science and Technology Innovation Conference, Ren Zhengfei proposed several strategies that can both innovate and move forward while avoiding risks. I think they are worth learning for industry leaders:
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> 1. Distributed "multi-path, multi-echelon" strategy. Avoid betting on the wrong horse and wrong technical routes. This is both exploring and avoiding risks.
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> 2. "Blue Army Strategy." "The Blue Army should also be materialized." "The Blue Army should find ways to negate the Red Army." Through internal competition simulation, avoid external risks.
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> 3. Praise "imperfect heroes." "Do not judge heroes by success or failure. Extract the factors of success from failure, summarize, affirm, and praise, so that exploration continues. There is no such word as 'failure' in future exploration. Imperfect heroes are also heroes." The purpose of this is to encourage exploration.
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> 4. Openly absorb energy from the universe. "Strengthen dialogue and cooperation with scientists around the world, support research by scientists in the same direction, actively participate in various international industry and standards organizations, various academic discussions, drink coffee with capable people, and perceive the direction of development from the sparks of thought. Only with the accumulation and release of huge potential energy can there be thick accumulation and thin hair."
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> I think the above practices are what an industry leader should do. Only in this way can one be worthy of being the leader.
-END-
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