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What is Leadership

But he wouldn’t have been much use as a strategic leader if he had died would he?

There’s something seriously wrong if a stategic leader has to go into harms way as a tactical responder in order to be credible. There’s something wrong with both the leadership and followership culture if a strategic leader has to get stuck in asna repsonder.
Strategically we've already seen the guys on the gate didn't know what they were supposed to do. Isn't he to blame for that?

Westminster security 'failed' stabbed PC

PC Ashby said he was responsible for patrolling "sector three" of the courtyard, which included the Members' Entrance, Carriage Gates and College Green.

The court heard that the most recent instructions for New Palace Yard dated from 2015 and ordered them to focus on the Carriage Gates.

But PC Ashby told the Old Bailey he had never seen the up-to-date "post instructions" for where to be stationed and that officers worked from a map posted on a wall that dated from 2012.

An email chain, which included the chief inspector of operations for the palace, Nick Aldworth, revealed concerns had been raised over the positioning of armed officers as early as February 2015.


Mr Adamson suggested it was an "extraordinary situation" where armed officers "had no idea what they were supposed to be doing" and that "lax" security arrangements had persisted for years.
 
There are clear and specific exemptions to normal rules about workplace risk for police officers on duty.
There seems to be a clear and specific exemption here for some posters to explain their stated opinions clearly and fully. You've failed to do so in this and your first post. Can you do so now?
 
How exactly do you do a study? Once you're out of the army you're out. No one from the government calls you up to ask if you are going to kill yourself.
 
Strategically we've already seen the guys on the gate didn't know what they were supposed to do. Isn't he to blame for that?

Westminster security 'failed' stabbed PC

PC Ashby said he was responsible for patrolling "sector three" of the courtyard, which included the Members' Entrance, Carriage Gates and College Green.

The court heard that the most recent instructions for New Palace Yard dated from 2015 and ordered them to focus on the Carriage Gates.

But PC Ashby told the Old Bailey he had never seen the up-to-date "post instructions" for where to be stationed and that officers worked from a map posted on a wall that dated from 2012.

An email chain, which included the chief inspector of operations for the palace, Nick Aldworth, revealed concerns had been raised over the positioning of armed officers as early as February 2015.


Mr Adamson suggested it was an "extraordinary situation" where armed officers "had no idea what they were supposed to be doing" and that "lax" security arrangements had persisted for years.
Is he the duty holder, I thought it would sit higher up?
 
All soldiers or combat veterans?

Both, if I remember correctly I think when they did it by ages, younger soldiers were slightly higher than average to kill themselves than their civvies counterparts but overall serving and ex serving was lower.

The BBC article on the Falklands veterans (Previous to this they had run articles on how more killed themselves than were killed by the enemy)

Falklands suicides 'overestimated'
 
There seems to be a clear and specific exemption here for some posters to explain their stated opinions clearly and fully. You've failed to do so in this and your first post. Can you do so now?

The legislation is freely available on one of those “web” things. It’s not a matter of opinion, although the poster I quoted presumably thinks he’s right.

Incidentally, directives aren’t law.
 
I have many problems with his actions in this. Some of that is about doing nothing when a brother is in mortal danger; some of that is about his lack of what used to be taught at RMAS as officership - command, example, responsibility; he didn't take command, he didn't show a good example and he didn't take responsibility. But in a way that pales when I read his excuses.

He said: "I could see PC Palmer moving backwards and him going down...​
"The thing that still shakes me about the attack is that it was 80-plus seconds in total. It didn't feel like that, it felt an awfully long time."​
Almost like he was watching telly, in all this his estimate led him to

"That's when I thought: 'I have got to start putting everything we need in place. We have got no protective equipment, no radio, I have got two colleagues with me who are quite distressed,' so we moved out."​
This sounds like prevarication to me, defecting from the actual incident and busying himself with something that make feel he's doing something. How does distressed compare to being attacked by a nutter wielding two big FO knives? There is also shifting the problem from what is he going to do to it being a collective responsibility of everyone with him. He was the senior officer and should have taken command. As someone else has suggested he should have gone out and tried to calm it down, warn others around then put himself between civis and the threat if that became necessary.

"If anyone had got out, the way this Masood was looking, anyone who got in his way would have been a target."​
This is awful, everyone out there can get hurt but not me, i'm alright jack. At that point did he forget that he was a copper.

The armed forces and the police are unique in that we know that when we sign on we have given up certain rights that everyone else takes for granted. Certainly for the armed forces that includes, if necessary, being called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect our people and our nation - I am pretty sure tis fundamental to the role of the police. It's a part of the job and if one of the most senior officers in the police doesn't understand that at the most basic they are there to put themselves between the people and danger then the system has allowed the wrong people to get to the top.

Cressida Dick needs to grip this. I think her silence is rather poor and I suspect the damage done to police morale at a time when it is already pretty low is going to be difficult to repair.
I pretty much agree with all of that, although I’m not convinced he should have taken command. There’s a command structure of junior to senior commanders in place with the training, equipment, comms etc for that. I suspect the last thing hey would want ir need is their most senior officer grandstanding at the tactical level.

So if he was to get have got involved he should have done so as a Constable and a man. As I have said before, I’m not going to pass my judgement on him for not doing so, not least because I have no idea how I would have reacted. But also because I can see there is a good argument why the Met’s most senior officer should extricate from a situation to do his job as a strategic leader.

If he’d stood up on the day and taken responsibility for his actions, I think we’d view his actions differently. Sure, there’d be plenty of keyboard warriors criticising him for not getting in to the fight but that could have been managed with strong messaging.

But he didn’t. He hid. And the rest of the senior leadership including Dick did nothing. They are now reaping what they showed.
 
The legislation is freely available on one of those “web” things. It’s not a matter of opinion, although the poster I quoted presumably thinks he’s right.

Incidentally, directives aren’t law.
Thanks, although perhaps you should have explained your cryptic post at the start; it would have saved all those pointless pixels.

You still haven't explained, though. It's no wonder I've become a heroin addict; life's so frustrating.
 
Strategically we've already seen the guys on the gate didn't know what they were supposed to do. Isn't he to blame for that?
I’m not sure if “blame” is the right word, but he does carry significant responsibility. He didn’t train or brief the guys on the gate or make sure they understood those orders. There’s someone who did who takes the blame for that.

But strategic leaders set the strategic direction of their organisation, set the culture, empower and resource executive level leadership, etc etc.

I don’t see any of that. I see political correctness, an unwillingness to take action and a willingness to blame politicians. It isn’t strategic leadership.
 
If course not. But sometimes decision makers have to accept and be held responsible for those bad consequences however correct the decision was.

Agreed. Captains get court martialled whether they are on the bridge or not when mistakes are made. Over-long and less-than-clear chains of responsibility play a part in this. If you are the senior officer at an incident you take charge even if you have not got all your ducks in a row.
 
If course not. But sometimes decision makers have to accept and be held responsible for those bad consequences however correct the decision was.

Why? I've never understood that. The army has a habit of punishing commanders for things that they couldn't possibly have foreseen or would have been unreasonable to mitigate and it's responsible for many of the worst features of the army. Gated soldiers, bars closed at 11pm, no kettles in the block, excessive room inspections, etc.

How about we just make people responsible for their actions rather than things that happen to them by coincidence?
 

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