Chapter 3: Leadership and Quality Culture

Introduction

The structures, processes, and priorities have dramatically changed in the organizations. Parallel with these changes, characteristics and the roles of successful leaders have changed in the past several decades. Only through a strong leadership and management commitment, organizations can take solid steps toward meeting and exceeding the highest standards of quality. Successful leaders also create an appropriate organizational culture for quality. It is very important to have an organizational culture that supports the quality objectives of the organization. Effective implementation of quality principles requires an organizational culture that fosters quality principles. This chapter focuses on leadership and organizational culture for quality.

Leadership in Quality Management

In order to maintain quality management standards, organizations must have the highest standards of leadership. The concept of quality management requires a high level of participation and teamwork throughout the organization and in all activities. It is also important to note that whether there is guidance and support from the leaders of the organization in quality journey is very crucial. Recognizing the contributions of the employees and improving teamwork within the organization can radically improve the return on organization’s people costs – in remuneration, turnover and quality terms. In other words, benefits of quality management practices can only be fully realized by maximizing the use of all employees at all levels within their abilities and skills. is important to note that managerial philosophy is closely linked with different management styles. Among these styles, autocratic management, participative management, charismatic leadership, transactional and transformational leadership, management by fact, and coaching are the most commonly referred approaches.

Leadership

From the quality management standpoint, leadership refers to the ability to inspire people to make a total, willing, and voluntary commitment to accomplishing or exceeding organizational goals. Another definition of leadership in regards to quality management defines leadership as the creation of a vision and environment which inspire people to contribute to organizational goals and nurtures both their capability to do so and their wellbeing within their endeavors (Knowles, 2011, p.59).

Both definitions involve a key concept that is especially relevant to quality management: the concept of inspiring people because inspiring people refers to a higher order of human interaction than simply motivating them. Inspiration means motivation that has been internalized. Such motivation leads employees to commit to the organizational goals. Thus, leaders inspire their followers to commit to the goals, vision, and mission of the organization. Following are the leadership techniques used

by the leaders to inspire their followers (Goetsch and Davis, 2014, p.133):

• Aligning personnel with the vision
• Provide a sense of direction
• Effective and frequent communication
• Empowerment
• Training and mentoring

The figure 3.1 on page 56, shows the characteristics of a good leader. Leaders generally follow a cycle while performing their job. The leadership cycle (in Figure 3.2. on page 56) captures the essence of a leader’s job. Like all cycles, there is no specific beginning or ending. The basic steps of the leadership cycle are as follows:

• Challange what is
• Imagine what will be
• Make it happen

All three steps in the cycle are needed for changes both small and large. If leaders do not make it happen, then it is a waste of time. If leaders do not imagine what will be then they will be stuck in the problems of today. Finally, if leaders do not understand to challenge what is, their organization will likely be held back by hidden assumptions, stumbling from one bright idea to the next, never realizing the full potential of any of them (Joiner, 1996, p.20).

The Principles of Leadership for Quality

Leadership for quality is mainly based on the philosophy of continually improving people, processes, and products/ services. There are several principles of leadership for quality. These principles are as follows:

1. Embody the values of quality
2. Create unity of purpose
3. Focus on the process, not the outcome
4. Motivation of individuals
5. Control and participation
6. Learning, education and training

In addition to these principles of leadership for quality, there are also key elements of leadership for quality. First, leadership for quality must have a focus on customers. It is also important that leaders, with respect to quality perspective, must have a strong obsession for quality. Furthermore, not only the leaders but also the employees must aggressively pursue quality in order to meet and exceed the customer expectations. Another key element of leadership for quality is that leaders must recognize the structure of work because leadership for quality requires that work processes be analyzed to determine their appropriate structural makeup (organization, order of steps, tools used, motion required, etc.). Teamwork is another important element of leadership for quality. Finally, emphasis on best practices and peak performance is another key element that stresses leader’s role in ensuring the absolute best possible performance from their personnel, processes, and products.

The PDCA Leadership Model

For effective quality leadership, management needs a process-oriented model. For example, a model which follows management’s yearly and follow-up cycle. Such a model is called PDCA leadership model. PDCA leadership model cycle starts with the “Check” phase because the development of the plan for quality improvements calls for an understanding of the current situation. The second phase of the PDCA leadership model cycle is the “Act” phase and it consists of two elements: Suggestions and motivation. “Plan” is the third phase in the PDCA leadership model and it consists of two elements: Defining the quality goals and policies, and design of the quality plans. Finally, the last phase of the PDCA leadership model is the “Do” phase that consists of two elements: communication and education. The final quality plan should be communicated to everyone concerned in the organization and the required education must be provided.

Organizational Culture and Quality Culture

It is important to note that there are several tasks of strong leaders in quality management. One of these critical tasks is to manage the cultural transformation required for successful quality management practices. Organizational culture is at the heart of any organizational system and structure. The impact of culture on any organization is obvious and measured by the level of penetration, extent of sharing, and clarity of ordering or by its direction of impact, its pervasiveness, and the strength of its impact. There are many definitions given for the concept of the corporate culture. According to one definition, organizational culture is the sum total of the intellectual, constitutional and creative values produced by a firm’s people, as well as its knowledge and skills, behavior patterns, customs, and value judgements, procedures and departments which, in their structural inter-association and organization, represent the work content of its people in a certain period of time or era. According to Oakland (2004, p.47), organizational culture is formed by a number of elements:

• Behaviors based on people interactions.
• Norms resulting from working groups.
• Dominant values adopted by the organization.
• Rules of the game for ‘getting on’.
• The climate.

From the cultural standpoint, any organization needs a vision framework that includes its guiding philosophy, core values and beliefs, and a purpose. These elements are crucial in the development of organizational culture and successful leaders develop their vision, mission, and values of their organization and become role models of a culture of quality and excellence. Implementing vision, mission, core values, and corporate policy requires an appropriate organizational culture reflecting in shared values (e.g. concerning customers, employees, and the environment). In general, a quality culture requires a change in the attitudes and behavior of all employees. In order to accomplish that, appropriate reward and payment systems must be introduced. An organization’s quality culture refers to the opinions, beliefs, traditions, and practices concerning quality. Although it is hard to quantify an organization’s culture, it is important to assess the culture since it has a profound impact on the quality produced by the organization. Without an understanding of the cultural elements of the quality, significant and lasting improvements in quality levels are unlikely. Failure to establish and assess a solid quality culture might create serious problems for the organizations. Furthermore, it could be argued that such failures happen quite often and the majority of these problems occur for just a few basic reasons related to organizational culture and corporate quality programs. The most common root causes of these problems are given below (Kemp, 2006, p.62):

• Internal managers and workers have no connection with the customers
• Companies do not promote an empowered culture with customer focus
• Companies do not use enough common sense and process mapping
• Quality improvement begins by reducing cost, but ultimately offers more by improving value.

The managers and employees must tackle these common root causes of quality culture-related problems carefully. Such an effort requires a solid quality culture model and its applications. Kanji and Yui (1997) introduced a universal total quality culture model (Figure 3.6 on page 62) where the quality management process is described as a never-ending improvement of all people and management systems. In this context, quality culture has been described by the authors (as shown in Figure 3.7 on page 63), which can be easily customized for individual organizations. Quality culture is also an integral part of the strategy of the organization. Knowing the quality culture enables the implementation of a strategy in such a way that encourages employees to embrace the quality strategy. There are five critical success factors for developing a quality culture (Viljoen and Waveren, 2008, p.1783):

1. Providing goals and measurement
2. Evidence of top management commitment
3. Self-development and empowerment
4. Participation for inspiring action
5. Recognition and reward.