Total Quality Management The Role of Leadership in Total Quality Management

Total quality management (TQM) refers to the procedure involved in the integration of the processes, people, and customers of an organization, with the aim of ensuring that customer needs and expectations are met (Sallis, 2004). To this end, TQM can be described as an integrative management philosophy that seeks to continually improve the quality of the processes and products of an organization. In a competitive marketplace, quality is paramount, which is why TQM has shifted from being a mere responsibility of specialists to being a crucial leadership function. A leader has to identify opportunities for quality improvement and act on them, failure to which they risk losing TQM implementation responsibilities to departments with less expertise in development and training, and as a result, hampering the smooth flow of the TQM strategy. In this regard, leadership acts as the pivotal change agent, ensuring the successful implementation of TQM strategy in two significant ways; first, by incorporating the TQM principles and philosophy into their departmental operations; and secondly, by availing the development...

The leader's role in this regard is to identify those departments, put in place an implementation team consisting of representatives from each group, and then create an accountability system to gauge the performance of the team and ensure that it operates within its specified timeframe (Sallis, 2001).
Interest: TQM implementation requires a feeling of urgency in all departments of the organization (Sallis, 2004). It is the leader's duty to create this feeling of urgency by explaining to the staff why the implementation is important, demonstrating how the company stands to benefit from the change, and making employees understand the costs that would accrue if the status quo is maintained (Sallis, 2004).

Monitoring: TQM is not a spontaneous process; rather, it is a dynamic process that ought to be continually…