Leadership and employee commitment for quality management : a critical analysis of quality management literature

Originality/Value Our research provides insights to an important field within quality management – how is the value of management commitment transmitted into methodologies? BackgroundCommon statements in quality management presentations are: - Leadership is necessary - It’s important for quality management to have engaged leaders and employees. One way of describing a quality management system is to see it as a combination of values, methodologies and tools. A question to study is which the methodologies and tools are that translate the leadership and employee commitment into action. The value of: “Committed leadership” is a core value in quality management. Another important value is: “Let everybody be committed”. These values could be seen as the values relating to human behaviour as in contrast to other values focusing on quality technology issues. The value of: “Let everybody be committed” tells us that it is important for employees to feel needed, to be able to take responsibility and to be informed – but how do these methodologies and tools look like? Purpose The purpose of this research is to carry out a critical analysis of the methodologies and tools that quality management proposes as support to the values of “Committed leadership” and “Let everybody be committed”. Methodology/Approach We have carried out a literature study of books commonly used in university courses in quality management. Focus has been on identifying methodologies that support the values “Committed leadership” and “Let everybody be committed”. We have also looked at other values and supporting methodologies and tools as defined in the “Corner stone model”, Bergman & Klefsjo (2003). Findings It seems that quality literature is not very clear on how to engage employees and how to motivate them. Preliminary findings indicate that quality management still is relying heavily on quality methodologies and tools supporting the value of decisions based on facts and the value on continuous improvement. Quality gurus like W.E. Deming and J.Juran have claimed that only 10-15% of the operational problems can be solved at the operational level with the rest being system and management problems. This could indicate that more focus should be on how employees can affect their work situation rather than teaching them quality tools. Quality methodologies and tools are only of help when management leads in such a way that employees are empowered and encouraged to do the right things willingly. When the literature for quality management is analysed we find that leadership issues are not taken up very much. Not more than about 2 – 5% of the pages in the literature deal with leadership. Also, focus of the parts dedicated to leadership is mostly on check lists for important things to do and to know as a leader – like motivation. But there is very little to read about in what way you can motivate your employees or how you can acquire the required leadership capability. Limitations The study is limited to the theories found in the most frequently used quality management literature in Sweden. Value The topic takes up important success factors for quality management – how to make practise out of the guiding values of management and employee commitment.