Guys this was the seminar prepared by my dad on LEADERSHIP FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT last week, which my he presented in state level seminar. The paper presented, got registered in my dad's name. I am so happy that one more time I have put my sincere effort to make my dad famous in the college and the whole university.
Abstract
Too often today quality has become synonymous
with the latest government stricture on standards, examination success, school
performance, league tables or part of the latest party political pronouncements
on education before an election. I do not say this with any sense of cynicism.
Rather I sense it is the way of the world. Once the message of quality had
become popularized, there was always a danger of it becoming vulgarized.
TQM as a management model, with its emphasis
on leadership, strategy, teamwork, rigorous analysis and self-assessment, has a
universal message. And it has always been a philosophy for the long haul rather
than a short-term fix. It is now required more than ever in our world of
continuous change.
LEADERSHIP FOR
IMPLIMENTATION OF TQM
By
Shri.L.R.Kulkarni
Associate
Professor
Kamala
Baliga College of Education, Kumta
1. Introduction
‘Commitment means much more than giving an
annual
speech on how important quality is to our
school. It
requires unending enthusiasm and devotion to
quality
improvement. It calls for an almost fanatic
promotion of
and attention to new ways to do things. It
requires constant
review of each and every action.’
Stanley Spanbauer, A Quality System for Education
Total quality is a passion and a way of life
for those organizations that live its message. The question is how to generate
the passion and the pride required to generate quality in education. Peters and
Austin researched the characteristics of excellence for their book A Passion for Excellence (1986). Their research led them to the belief
that what makes the difference is leadership. They argue strongly for a
particular style of leadership to lead the quality revolution—a style to which
they have given the acronym MBWA or ‘management by walking about’. A
passion for excellence cannot be communicated
from behind the office desk. MBWA emphasizes both the visibility of leaders and
their understanding and feeling for the front-line and the processes of the institution.
This style of leadership is about communicating the vision and the values of
the institution to others, and getting out among the staff and the customers
and experiencing the service for themselves.
2.
The
Educational Leader
Peters and Austin gave specific consideration
to educational leadership in a chapter entitled ‘Excellence in School
Leadership’. They see the educational leader as needing the following
attributes:
·
Vision
and symbols—the head
teacher or principal must communicate the institution’s values to the staff,
pupils and students and the wider community.
·
Management
by walking about is
the required leadership style for any institution.
·
‘For
the kids’—this is their educational equivalent to
‘close to the customer’. It ensures that the institution has a clear focus on
its primary customers.
·
Autonomy, experimentation, and support for failure—educational leaders must encourage
innovation among their staff and be prepared for the failures that inevitably
accompany innovation.
·
Create
a sense of ‘family’—the
leader needs to create a feeling of community among the institution’s pupils,
students, parents, teachers and support staff.
·
Sense of the whole, rhythm, passion, intensity, and enthusiasm—these are the essential personal qualities
required of the educational leader.
The
significance of leadership for undertaking the transformation to TQM should not
be underestimated. Without leadership at all levels of the institution the
improvement process cannot be sustained. Commitment to quality has to be a
prime role for any leader. It is for this reason that TQM is said to be a
top-down process. It has been estimated that 80 per cent of quality initiatives
fail in the first two years. The main reason for failure is lack of senior
management backing and commitment. Quality improvement is too important to
leave to the quality coordinator. To succeed in education TQM requires strong
and purposeful leadership. Typically, managers in non-TQM organizations spend
30 per cent of their time in dealing with systems failure, complaints and
‘firefighting’. As TQM saves that time, managers have more time to lead, plan
ahead, develop new ideas and work closely with customers.
3. Communicating a vision
Senior
management must give the lead and provide vision and inspiration. In TQM
organizations all managers have to be leaders and champions of the quality
process. They need to communicate the mission and cascade it throughout the
institution. Many managers, particularly middle managers, may find total
quality difficult to accept and to implement. It involves a change in the
management mind-set as well as a change of role. It is a change from the ‘I’m
in charge’ mentality to that of manager as supporter and leader of front-line
staff. The function of leadership is to enhance the quality of learning and to
support the staff who delivers it. While this sounds obvious, it is not always
the way management functions are viewed. Traditional notions of status can lie
uneasily with the total quality approach. TQM turns the traditional institution
on its head and inverts the hierarchy of functions. It empowers the teachers
and can provide them with greater scope for initiative. It is for this reason
that it is often said of TQM institutions that they require less management and
more leadership.
4.
The
role of the leader in developing a quality culture
What is the role of the leader in an
institution undertaking a total quality initiative? No list of attributes says
it all, but there are major functions that all leaders must undertake; these
include:
·
a
vision for the institution;
·
a
clear commitment to quality improvement;
·
an
ability to communicate the quality message;
·
meeting
customer needs;
·
ensuring
that the voices of customers are heard;
·
leading
staff development;
·
a no
blame culture—most quality problems are the result of management and policies
and not the failings of staff;
·
leading
innovation;
·
ensuring
that organizational structures have clearly defined responsibilities and
provide the maximum delegation compatible with accountability;
·
a
commitment to the removal of artificial barriers, whether they be organizational
or cultural;
·
building
effective effective teams;
·
developing
appropriate mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating success.
5. Empowering teachers
A key aspect of the leadership role in
education is to empower teachers to give them the maximum opportunity to
improve the learning of their students. Stanley Spanbauer, the former President
of Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin who took a lead in introducing TQM
into vocational education in the United States, argues that:
in a quality-based
approach, school leadership relies on the
empowerment of
teachers and others involved in the teaching/
learning process.
Teachers share in decision-making and assume
greater responsibilities.
They are given more power to act and
greater autonomy in
almost everything they do.
Spanbauer, in his A Quality System for Education (1992), has put forward a plan for leadership
to create a new educational environment. He argues that educational leaders
should guide and assist others to develop a similar set of characteristics.
This encourages shared responsibility and a style that will engender an
interactive working environment. He visualizes a leadership style where leaders
‘must walk and talk quality and understand that change happens by degree, not
by decree’. Leaders have a pivotal role in guiding teachers and administrators
to work for and in concert with their client groups. Spanbauer’s model is one
of leadership for empowerment. His conclusions are:
·
Involve
teachers and all staff in problem-solving activities, using basic scientific
methods and the principles of statistical quality and process control.
·
Ask
them how they think about things and how projects can be handled rather than
telling them how they will happen.
·
Share
as much management information as possible to help foster their commitment.
·
Ask
staff which systems and procedures are preventing them from delivering quality
to their customers—students, parents, co-workers.
·
Understand
that the desire for meaningful improvement of teachers is not compatible with a
top-down approach to management.
·
Rejuvenate
professional growth by moving responsibility and control for professional
development directly to the teachers and technical workers.
·
Implement
systematic and continued communication among everyone involved in the school.
·
Develop
skills in conflict resolution, problem solving and negotiations while
displaying greater tolerance for and appreciation of conflict.
·
Be
helpful without having all the answers and without being condescending.
·
Provide
education in quality concepts and subjects such as team building, process
management, customer service, communication and leadership.
·
Model,
by personally exhibiting desired characteristics and spending time walking
around, listening to teachers and other customers.
·
Learn
to be more like a coach and less like a boss.
·
Provide
autonomy and allow risk taking while being fair and compassionate.
·
Engage
in the delicate balancing act of ensuring quality to external customers
(students, parents, taxpayers), while at the same time paying attention to the
needs of internal customers (teachers, board members, and other co-workers).
Bibilography
1. Total Quality Management in Education,
Third edition, By Edward Sallis.
2. Total quality management in education -
Marmar Mukhopadhyay
3. http://www.aiaer.net/ejournal/vol21109/8.Pour
& Yeshodhara.pdf
4. Total quality management and education, By Jens J. Dahlgaard, Kai
Kristensen & Gopal K. Kanji
No comments:
Post a Comment