Key Points

• The role of leaders in Total Quality Management is likely to make or break its rollout. 
• Total Quality Management has long shown to be a successful investment, something Toyota knows all too well. 
• The best leaders will stand behind their teams, encourage their ideas, and make them feel trusted and valued. 

Whether it’s Total Quality Management or another popular methodology used in the business world, a lot of the success rides on how engaged and involved the leadership is. There’s no question that it’s crucial in quality management, as it requires a strong leader to rally everyone behind the TQM cause and ensure everything is implemented correctly. 

According to data published by Forbes, companies with strong management are 13 times more likely to outperform their competitors. This is a clear-cut argument in favor of the value of having strong leadership involved at every step of the Total Quality Management rollout. Leaders who want to see the company succeed will do everything in their power to make this become a reality. 

What Is Total Quality Management? 

If you’re looking for a quick and easy definition of Total Quality Management, focus on it being a structured approach to organizational management. Said differently, the role of TQM is to specifically focus on the output of an organization, likely its goods and services, and how to improve them. 

The goal is to continually improve this output by updating and refining internal practices. Toyota famously instituted Total Quality Management through the kanban system to implement its “just-in-time” or JIT inventory process. The goal was to ensure that they had enough inventory on hand to deliver to customers, but not so much that they would have unsold cars waiting around. 

The Importance of TQM Leadership

It goes without saying that any successful TQM implementation will take place due to strong leadership. To say that this strong leadership is crucial in the quality management methodology is not an exaggeration. It’s the role of a good leader to both encourage and drive employees towards this methodology, whereas a bad leader will be a hindrance and help employees avoid these efforts. 

Good leaders are going to help set the vision, establish the goals, and create the direction toward the successful implementation of a TQM rollout. If this strong leadership is not present, a company can rightfully expect that employees will lack the right direction and motivation, as well as the necessary oversight to perform their job well.  

The Role of Leadership in TQM

Setting the Tone

At the very start of any Total Quality Management rollout, it’s the job of a leader to start setting the right tone immediately. This will heavily emphasize leaders who prioritize quality and creating the right culture over everything else. 

Leaders will also have numerous opportunities at the onset of a TQM process to ensure employees understand that they must take ownership of their work and that continuous improvement is the primary goal. The leader needs not just to say this, but live and breathe it alongside their teams. 

Essentially, leaders set the tone for the entire quality management system, which in turn affects the goals, culture, and values of an organization. 

Align Organizational and Customer Needs

Another significant responsibility for leaders is to ensure that the needs of both the organization and its customers are aligned. The role of a leader is to align these two distinct needs under a single set of priorities, ensuring both parties are satisfied. Leaders, at least good leaders, will focus heavily on trying to understand what customers want while ensuring the organization can deliver. 

A great leader will also have a customer-centric mindset that needs to be ingrained throughout the company by these leaders. This includes learning about the specific demands each customer has regarding their deliverables, as well as gathering their input. Understanding what the customer wants and needs, a leader will use this information to enhance internal processes and deliver. 

Encouraging Continuous Improvement 

Good leaders in a quality management system will encourage a culture that not only supports but also nurtures the idea of continuous improvement. They will work with other leaders as well as internal teams to determine how to improve internal processes, products, and the services being delivered to customers. 

The goal is to make sure that a company can remain both competitive and relevant in the marketplace. It’s up to leaders to come up with ideas or processes that help differentiate their company from others, attract new customers more effectively, and maintain customer loyalty. 

In addition, leaders need to listen to their teams on where to improve, as well as those doing the actual work are often the most informed about what can and should change. 

Building Trust

Building trust with employees is one of the most critical roles of leadership in a Total Quality Management rollout. There will be a lot of changes happening at once, and understandably, employees will be unnerved by everything that’s happening. They will likely question their overall work, job security, and so on, and it’s the role of a leader to ensure they know there’s backing at the highest levels. 

Driving Innovation 

Finally, another big role of a leader is to help promote innovation across teams by encouraging them to try different things, take risks, and not be afraid to make unique suggestions. The best leaders are those who take their team’s initiatives to heart and have the trust in them to believe that something they think will work does work. It’s the leaders who take the risks alongside their team that often perform the best. 

What Should A Leader Not Do? 

With the five steps above, a leader is very likely to be successful with a TQM rollout, but there are ways they can just as easily fail. 

Things like micromanaging employees and watching their every move will be seen as a lack of trust. It will also prevent employees from feeling comfortable enough to be creative and instead force them to be order takers, merely in the hopes of protecting their job. 

A good leader will also stand in front of their team and not let them be the only ones to blame for something going wrong. Leaders who succeed will say that they approved something and that they used their employees’ input to make the best possible decision. 

Bad leaders are also going to be the ones who are most resistant to change and refuse to be adaptable when things aren’t going well. This is especially true of leaders who try to prioritize short-term metrics over long-term quality objectives.

Lastly, leaders need to lead by example and not just indicate that they should do what they say, not necessarily what they do. 

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Are you interested in learning more about Total Quality Management and its success around the world? Then you should take a look at these TQM case studies from leading organizations. Of course, before reading these case studies, you might want to go back to the beginning and take a read around what Total Quality Management actually is and why it’s still relevant today. 

If you’re interested in reading something unrelated to TQM, we might recommend exploring the real-world applications of the Theory of Constraints. This alternative to TQM is highly popular and, as these case studies show, very successful when implemented properly. 

Conclusion 

Ultimately, the role of leadership in Total Quality Management is of great importance. It cannot be overstated how important this individual or team of individuals is to the successful rollout of this methodology. Without strong leadership that trusts and believes in its teams, the ability of TQM to have any meaningful impact in an organization is likely to be minimal.