E XCELLENCE IN

LEADERSHIP
 The vehicle for achieving excellence in leadership is Total Quality
Management. We have seen that its framework covers the entire
organization, all the people and all the functions, including
external organization and suppliers. Several requirements of TQM
are becoming clear:
• Recognizing customers and discovering their needs (this
refers to immediate and end user customers equally).
• Setting standards that are consistent with internal and end
user customer requirements.
• Controlling processes, including systems, and improving
their capability.
• Management’s responsibility for setting the guiding
philosophy, vision, quality policy, etc., and providing
motivation through leadership and equipping people to
achieve quality.
• Selecting the right employees and supply chain partners
and empowering people at all levels in the organization
and across the supply chain to act for quality
improvement.
 The core of TQM is the customer- supplier interfaces, both
internally and externally, and the fact that at each interface there
are processes to convert inputs to outputs. Clearly, there must be
commitment to building-in quality through management of the
inputs and processes.
A fundamental principle behind all these approaches is that the
behaviours of the leaders in an organization need to create clarity
and constancy of purpose.
This may be achieved through development of the vision, values
and purpose needed for longer-term performance success.
Planning
• Develop the vision needed for constancy of purpose and for
long-term success.
• Develop, deploy and update policy and strategy.
• Align organizational structure to support delivery of policy
and strategy
Performance
• Identify critical areas of performance.
• Develop measures to indicate levels of current performance.
• Set goals and measure progress towards their achievement.
• Provide feedback to people at all levels regarding their
performance against agreed goals.
Processes
• Ensure a system for managing processes is developed and
implemented.
• Ensure through personal involvement that the management
system is developed, implemented and continuously
improved.
• Prioritize improvement activities and ensure they are
planned on an organization-wide basis.
People
• Train managers and team leaders at all levels in leadership skills
and problem solving.
• Stimulate empowerment (‘experts’) and teamwork to encourage
creativity and innovation.
• Encourage, support and act on results of training, education and
learning activities.
• Motivate, support and recognize the organization’s people –
both individually and in teams.
• Help and support people to achieve plans, goals, objectives
and targets.
• Respond to people and encourage them to participate in
improvement activities.
Customers
• Be involved with customers and other stakeholders.
• Ensure customer (external and internal) needs are
understood and responded to.
• Establish and participate in partnerships – as a customer
demand continuous improvement in everything.
Commitment
• Be personally and actively involved in quality and improvement
activities.
• Review and improve effectiveness of own leadership.
Culture
• Develop the values and ethics to support the creation of a
total quality culture across the entire supply chain.
• Implement the values and ethics through actions and
behaviours.
• Ensure creativity, innovation and learning activities are
developed and implemented.
Communications
• Stimulate and encourage communication and collaboration.
• Personally communicate the vision, values, mission, policies and
strategies.
• Be accessible and actively listen.