Management Initiated Quality

Business management research literature contains conflicting ideas about the nature of management and leadership with as many as one hundred different definitions of leadership (Bastien et al 275). Considering the enormous variety of types of companies, cultures, and personalities of people to be led, it is no surprise that there is not complete consensus on what makes an effective business manager in quality organizations. It is the purpose of this paper to focus on the need for management to initiate quality within business rather than the workers.

Leadership means different things to different people. Generally the qualities of courage, intelligence, conviction, energy, charisma, ambition, decisiveness, persistence, assertiveness, and the ability to inspire others are thought to be associated positively with leadership (Frank 382). Although managers are thought to have responsibilities somewhat different from executive leaders, such as resolving disputes, allocating resources, and negotiating contracts, for purposes of this paper, the terms manager and leader are used interchangeably.

Effective managers are completely committed to the tasks at hand. They are committed to a depth that the workers can feel the integrity of the person's every decision and action. For example in the business novel The Goal the manager Rogo elicits information from all levels of workers. He is a walkabout manager who constantly gleans information about bottlenecks, obstacles to g

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iendly service, and well-made error free products or services. Every company promises these things, but it is difficult to deliver on the promise on a consistent basis. Frank indicates that being able to initiate quality in a business is directly correlated with the ability to discern different levels of ability and motivation among the workers (Frank 382). They are not expected to motivate themselves and strive for quality unless they are highly educated and skilled individuals. Some workers simply are rather low level and Frank contends that this type of worker simply needs to be told what to do. At the other end of the continuum in management initiated quality is the act of delegating authority and responsibility to the self-motivated worker (Frank 382). In other words there is not a one size fits all approach to all the employees because they are quite varied individuals with different aspirations and needs in their personal and work lives. They are of different levels of maturity, and many cannot be expected to motivate themselves to work at a high quality level. Within a quality organization, quality plans must be led by the upper management with the executive leadership completely in congruence with the overall miss

Category: Business - M