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Student Learning Objective 4

Specify the role of engineering in total quality management.

Learning Objective B

Recommend alternative approaches to improve an organization's quality leadership.

Content

The topic for Module B is quality leadership. Characteristics of leadership and leadership concepts are examined. Most of the material for this module is taken from Besterfield (2003).

Slide 9: Characteristics of Quality Leaders

  • They give priority attention to external and internal customers and their needs,
  • They empower, rather than control, subordinates,
  • They emphasize improvement rather than maintenance,
  • They emphasize prevention,
  • They encourage collaboration rather than competition,
  • They train and coach, rather than direct and supervise

Source: Besterfield (2003)

Slide 10: Characteristics of Quality Leaders, continued

  • They learn from problems,
  • They continually try to improve communications,
  • They continually demonstrate their commitment to quality,
  • They choose suppliers on the basis of quality, not price,
  • They establish organizational systems to support the quality effort,
  • They encourage and recognize team effort

Source: Besterfield (2003)

Slide 11: Leadership Concepts

  • People, paradoxically, need security and independence at the same time,
  • People are sensitive to external rewards and punishments and yet are also strongly self-motivated,
  • People like to hear a kind word of praise,
  • People can only process a few facts at a time (leaders keep things simple)
  • People trust their gut reaction more than statistical data,
  • People distrust a leader's rhetoric if the words are inconsistent with the leader's actions

Source: Besterfield (2003)