Leadership and policy deployment: The backbone of TQM

Abstract

This paper presents total quality management (TQM) as a comprehensive approach to improving competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility through planning, organising and understanding each activity, and involving each individual at each level. It is useful in all types of organisations. Effective TQM ensures that management adopts a strategic overview of quality and focuses on prevention, not detection, of problems. It often requires a mindset change to break down existing barriers. Managements that doubt the applicability of TQM should ask questions about the operation's costs, errors, wastes, standards, systems, training and job instructions. TQM must start at the top, where serious obsession and commitment to quality and leadership need to be demonstrated. Middle management also has a key role to play in communicating the message. Every chief executive must accept the responsibility for commitment to a quality policy that deals with the organisation for quality, the customer needs, the ability of the organisation, supplied materials and services, education and training and review of the management systems for never-ending improvement. The culture of an organisation is formed by the beliefs, behaviours, norms, dominant values, rules and climate in the organisation. Any organisation needs a vision framework, comprising its guiding philosophy, core values and beliefs and purpose. The effectiveness of an organisation depends on the extent to which people perform their roles and move towards the common goals and objectives. TQM is concerned with moving the focus of control from the outside to the inside of individuals, so that everyone is accountable for his/her own performance. Effective leadership starts with the chief executive's vision and develops into a strategy for deployment. Top management should develop the following for effective leadership: clear beliefs and objectives in the form of a vision; clear and effective strategies and supporting plans; the critical success factors and core processes; the appropriate management structure; employee participation through empowerment. The vehicle for achieving excellence in leadership is TQM. Using the construct of the Oakland TQM Model, the four Ps and four Cs provide a framework for this: Planning, Performance, Processes, People, Customers, Commitment, Culture and Communications. The paper concludes with reflections from the author after 30 years a ‘quality professional’ on leadership and policy deployment as the backbone of TQM and introduces research themes for ‘quality in the twenty-first century’.