|
Leadership for Quality
By now you will have noticed that the quality-focussed company differentiates between management and leadership. Old-style organizations assumed that leadership was one of the responsibilities of management. Often, there was no distinction made between management and leadership. But the two are very different indeed.
Whereas management's first field of action is planning, leaders begin their work by establishing a direction or vision for the company. The manager's methods include organizing, budgeting, staffing and allocating. The methods of leadership include inspiring, motivating and instilling employees with a sense of commitment to the organization and its goals. Modern companies in pursuit of quality excellence will need both strong leadership and effective management. The first step to achieving either, is to appreciate the different organizational needs each must serve.
To be maximally effective, leaders must create a vision for the company that is worthy of commitment. They must work to bring this vision into focus for every member of the organization, by explaining the need for it, and how it will benefit everyone. Indeed, "visioneering" is the critical contribution leaders bring to the job.
The leader's vision must provide a long-term goal for the company. This goal must not be easily or quickly obtained, because once it is, the energizing effect of the vision is diminished. Visions that enlist the commitment of employees, often do not have profit as a primary objective. Worthy visions have goals that supercede profit, such as excellence, innovation, service and the provision of meaningful and worthwhile job security. These are the pursuits that produce organizational commitment. To maintain this commitment and the integrity of the vision, leaders must reinforce the values of the vision in everything they do. More to the point, they must do so in a highly visible manner. This is how leaders build a corporate culture that is geared towards making the vision a reality.
The leader's responsibilities are indeed great. Perhaps the greatest responsibility lies in the impression the leader gives the rest of the organization of what it takes to be a leader. This is what we may call "leading by example", and as mentioned before, the example must be very noticeable. The leader's fields of action include;
developing a vision that will win the support of others,
designing systems that motivate employees to learn and grow,
participating in performance reviews,
serving on improvement teams,
rewarding sincere effort, even when it does not "pay off",
recognizing excellence wherever it may be found,
charting the direction of the company for the future,
coaching others to take a leadership role in their work, and
ensuring that the vision is kept in sharp focus at all times
You will notice that nowhere in this list does it say that the leader must exhort others to excel. Far too many leaders have misunderstood their figurehead role in this respect. They have believed that their job was to tell others to work harder, faster, smarter or better in some way. They thought their job was to craft slogans or mottoes urging improved performance. While this may be a worthy goal, a goal without a method for achieving it is just a dream.
More to the point, employees are only part of the performance system. To urge employees to do better is to assume that the cause of the deficient performance is the employees themselves. But at least eight times out of ten, the fundamental causes of low performance lie in the work environment and in the systems that employees work within and through. To improve performance, leaders and their followers must work together to improve the company's processes, procedures, policies, standards, structures and the means of monitoring them. Concrete improvements have nothing to do with paying lip-service, and everything to do with listening better and working together using rigorous methods and sound theory.
|
