Political Quomodo Questioned on Asylum Seekers

A current leadership state of chaos?

In reading the Guardian News, what is emerging today is a classic chasm between government politicians and non-political leaders.??In this case, the challenge comes from influential church leaders in which the morality of the UK government's decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is being questioned.??Described as unethical by religious leaders versus ‘an early Easter redemption’ (for Asylum seekers) by the former Cabinet Leader and now the minister for Brexit Opportunities, Jacob Rees Mogg, what we see is a classic stand-off between political expediency in tackling what is clearly a wicked problem (wicked in the sense of it being complex rather than evil) against an increasing tide in which not just the ethics of the decision but its morality, is being questioned (perhaps reflecting the classic meaning of wicked within the context of problem-solving?) ?Add to this, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office has written an open letter.?He questions the efficacy of this decision which cannot be quantified or predicted.??A ministerial direction from the Home Secretary appears to be the answer that will emerge.??The political quomodo (the UK government Modus Operandi) is one of ‘just do it’ regardless of the absence of quantifiable evidence for assessing the likely impact.??We are witnessing a fundamental tension in leadership between politicians, religious leaders and senior policymakers. The impact will affect many thousands of lives.

How do we assess the morality of this decision?

We can go back to early classic theological arguments in which Latin church leaders questioned the morality of a human act.?Quomodo?is one of eight interrogative questions through which ancient Latin sought to judge the moral nature of an action carried out.?

Classic Latin refers to three factors determining whether a human act is moral.??The same will apply to leadership acts, and (as part of national leadership) it will apply equally to political decisions.?

The?object (the act itself – in this case, the decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda), the?intention?(of doing the act – is this on economic or humanistic grounds?)??The surrounding?circumstances?(in which case the ‘when’ question (see below) is the one that suggests this is purely on the grounds of political expediency).??

Of the eight classic Latin questions, the how? (quomodo) and why? (cur) questions are the most important in determining where the act lies on the scale of moral or immoral intentions.??I adapted these interrogative questions to assess leadership acts, which are so often neglected in leadership studies, through a framework of six intelligent leadership questions; ‘how’ and ‘why’ leaders lead remains the most important, but – for now – we will look at the classic interrogative framework from our Latin forefathers.?

First, the How and the Why of Morality (and Leadership):??

Asking How and Why provides the foundation for assessing the object (of the act) and the intention (of the actor/s).??We are then assisted in making our judgement by reference to the remaining six classic interrogative questions which address the context (differing circumstances) that can be considered:

I have often argued that the public value outcomes of our public leaders should be assessed.??A Public Value Test starts with national leaders.??It is encouraging that the senior civil servant for the Home Office is being open and constructive in expressing concern over the lack of evidence for assessing the value-for-money and the impact on dissuading asylum seekers from making the arduous journey to the UK.??But, has anyone considered the impact on the asylum seekers? We can look to the experience of a similar policy by Israel in 2018, which Dr Guy Burton helpfully reminded us about

How do we assess political leadership?

If we take account of the classic morality test and the opinions that are currently being compared, we must conclude that the political decision fails on all moral grounds.??The existence of leadership deficits is why I have long promoted the need to assess both the collective and the individual behavioural styles of leadership based on a public value test; is this leadership promoting the public interest or the politicians' expediency??

I would be interested to hear your views.??In the meantime, I briefly share my framework to assist in assessing public leaders' morality and efficacy.

Six Intelligent Leadership Questions

Over many years I have devised a framework to ask six intelligent leadership questions.??I first came across the six questions as a trainee Detective at the Metropolitan Police Detective Training School in the early 1980s to ask questions about crimes committed.??Journalists also used the same framework in investigating their news stories. In later years, I have used the framework in devising my research questions for research projects and in creating my six intelligent leadership questions to understand the contexts of public leadership.??

Rudyard Kipling popularised the six questions in 1907 in the Elephants Child. The theme of Kipling's story fits well with asking intelligent leadership questions. The moral of the Elephant Child's story is that curiosity can open up new abilities, ideas, and knowledge

Influenced by the classic framework and from the eventual Six ILQ framework I have highlighted the important questions:

Cur quomodoque ducere possumus, quo fine??

Why and how can we lead, and to what end?

Start with Why:

Asking “why?” helps to uncover what leadership acts are required.??The answer provides the motivation for leading.???Some circumstances will have occurred, identifying why leaders need to act.??Once the challenge is known, this will represent the act's object, namely its purpose.

To what end (identifying the leadership challenge)?

The classic Latin framework asks three ‘what?’ questions (what means, what act and to what end?).??We deal with this in one ‘what?’ question – the adaptive leadership challenge, to what end???The answer to the question will illustrate the intention of the leadership act.

How will we achieve what we want to accomplish?

This is the Leadership Quomodo which needs to take account of both the aim (intention) and the surrounding contexts (circumstances) in securing the vision (the object) of the leadership challenge.

The second stage is to take account of the contexts (circumstances) by asking the remaining three ILQs.

When do leaders need to act?

Time is often the currency of good leadership. For politicians, this is often a short time frame.??For significant decisions, perhaps not extending beyond four years (the electoral cycle) or a matter of weeks or days (or sometimes hours) in dealing with crises.

Where does leadership need to take place?

From a national perspective, London-centric leadership behaviour is often discussed and occasionally addressed in terms of policy (for example, the ‘levelling up’ rhetoric), but where does Rwanda fit into the context of resolving national problems?

Who Leads

I have great respect for Jim Collins, author of ‘Good to Great’, but I cannot agree with his view that we should first get the right people on the bus before deciding where to drive it.?We need to know where we are going before we select the driver, the conductor and the passengers. ?Matching skills to tasks does, of course, have benefits, but we first need to know what it is we want to achieve (the object), why we want to accomplish this (the motivation) and how we are going to do it (the Quomodo).??Then we can match the “Who’s” to the tasks and leadership role.

Have we put the wrong people on the bus before we decide on our destination and on how far our journey will take us towards that destination?