Leadership for Organizational Performance and Quality

Posted on Jun 1, 2025 in International Business Economics

Leadership for Performance Excellence

Bennis’s List of Manager and Leader Characteristics

  • Managers: Administer, ask how and when, focus on systems, do things right, maintain, short-term perspective, imitate, are a copy.
    • Getting things done through people.
    • Begins with planning and budgeting, practices organizing and staffing, and achieves plans through controlling and problem-solving.
  • Leaders: Innovate, ask what and why, focus on people, do the right things, develop, long-term perspective, originate, and are original.
    • “The ability to get men to do what they don’t want to do and like it.”
    • Begins with setting direction — a vision of the future, as well as a set of approaches for achieving the vision.
    • Works on aligning people — communicating the vision and developing commitment to it.
    • Achieves its vision through motivating and inspiring.

Emphasis on Leadership (Deming’s Points)

  1. Create a statement of the aims and purposes of the company.
  2. Teach and institute leadership.
  3. Drive out fear, create trust, create a climate for innovation.
  4. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship.
  5. Take action to accomplish the transformation.

Performance Excellence Framework

  • Category 1: Leadership
    • 1.1 Senior Leadership
    • 1.2 Governance and Societal Responsibilities
  • 7.4 Leadership and Governance of Results

Importance of Leadership for Quality & Performance

  1. Leadership establishes plans and goals for the organization.
  2. Leadership helps to shape organizational culture.
  3. Leaders distribute resources.

Role of a Quality Leader

  • Establish a quality-oriented vision.
    • Create a picture of the desirable future state.
    • Instill this vision in all members of the organization.
  • Living the Values: Commits the organization to a set of values such as customer focus, continuous improvement, and teamwork. Managers demonstrate that commitment and values through action.
    • Lead by example, improving the processes they control.
    • Help prioritize processes to work on.
    • Inspire people to do things they do not believe they can do.
    • Remove barriers to success.
    • Track, encourage, and recognize improvement efforts.

Larry Culp, CEO of GE: A Case Study

Larry Culp, CEO of GE, focused on cutting waste and creating a culture of continuous improvement. His priorities included customer focus, elimination of waste, and ruthless prioritization of work.

Leadership System

A leadership system refers to how leadership is exercised, formally and informally, throughout an organization. These elements include how key decisions are made, communicated, and carried out at all levels.

Leadership Theories

  • Roles: Mintzberg
  • Leader Behavior: Consideration and Initiating Structure, McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
  • Contingency: A continuum, situational
  • Emerging: Emotional Intelligence, Transformational, and Transactional

Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles

Mintzberg identified three main categories of managerial roles:

  • Interpersonal Roles:
    • Figurehead
    • Leader
    • Liaison
  • Informational Roles:
    • Monitor
    • Disseminator
    • Spokesperson
  • Decisional Roles:
    • Entrepreneur
    • Disturbance Handler
    • Resource Allocator
    • Negotiator

Consideration and Initiating Structure

Leader behaviors can be captured by two dimensions:

  • Consideration: Taking care of subordinates, explaining things to them, being approachable, and generally being concerned about their welfare. In a total quality environment, people would be treated as respected associates, not paternalistically.
  • Initiating Structure: Task orientation, getting people organized, including setting goals, and instituting and enforcing deadlines and standard operating procedures. In a total quality environment, many of these activities may be taken over by employees.

Situational Leadership

Situational leadership is characterized by the skills and abilities of individuals to perform work, along with their confidence, commitment, and motivation. Different styles are applied based on the follower’s readiness:

  • Directing: Unable and unwilling
  • Coaching: Unable but willing
  • Supporting: Able but unwilling
  • Delegating: Able and willing

Leadership Styles

Common leadership styles include:

  • Autocratic: (Telling) High task / Low people focus
  • Diplomatic: (Selling) High task / High people focus
  • Consultative: (Consulting) Low task / High people focus
  • Participative: (Joining) Low task / Low people focus

Management Levels

  • First-line Managers: Directly supervise non-managers.
    • Typically focus on shorter-range planning.
  • Middle Managers: Although there are more first-line managers in a large organization, there are more levels of middle managers.
    • Typically focus on intermediate-range planning.
    • Coordinate efforts of first-line managers.
  • Top Managers: Also known as executive leaders.
    • Report to a board of directors.
    • Define character, mission, and objectives.
    • Establish and review long-range plans.

Focus on Top Managers in Quality Leadership

Most discussions on leadership for quality focus on top managers. However, it’s important to consider:

  • What can middle and first-level managers do to promote quality in their organizations?
  • How does this differ from the role of top management?

Leadership, Governance, and Societal Responsibilities

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR is the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society. Evidence suggests a positive relationship between CSR and business performance.

Organizational Governance

Governance refers to the system of management and controls exercised in the stewardship of an organization, to ensure accountability, transparency, and fair treatment.

Governance processes may include:

  • Approving strategic direction.
  • Monitoring and evaluating CEO performance.
  • Succession planning.
  • Financial auditing.
  • Executive compensation.
  • Disclosure and shareholder reporting.

Societal Responsibilities

Key societal responsibilities include:

  • Safety in product design and manufacturing.
  • Management and security of sensitive information.
  • Environmental protection.
  • Good citizenship: Leadership and support of publicly important purposes, such as improving education, community health, environmental excellence, resource conservation, community service, and professional practices.

Emotional Intelligence (EI): Definition and Categories

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of oneself and others. EI can be divided into two domains and four categories:

  • The Personal Competence Domain:
    1. Self-awareness: Precisely acknowledging your own emotions and staying aware of them as they occur.
    2. Self-management: Remaining flexible and positively directing your behavior as a result of being self-aware.
  • The Social Competence Domain:
    1. Social awareness: Accurately observing emotions in other people to understand what they are thinking and feeling.
    2. Relationship management: Using awareness of your own and other people’s emotions.