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Quality and leadership: two of a kind

Twenty-two years ago an editor requested that a chapter on leadership be removed from their book on quality because leadership 'bore no relationship to the main topic.' How times have changed, say Pat Townsend and Joan Gebhardt

Today, most people recognise that while quality and leadership may not be two sides of the same coin, they are definitely issued from the same mint. A quality approach cannot flourish in a leadership-deprived setting.

Looking back at leadership

Awareness of the role of leadership in quality coincided with the rise in consumer power during the latter third of the 20th century. The growth of the service sector brought customers in close contact with employees. Employers became aware that the attitude of their employees would always be either an asset or a liability, and this awareness gradually spread back to the manufacturing sector as international competition sharpened. Following a surge in demand for quality products and services, a tough boss willing to threaten and cajole, combined with capital, proximity to potential customers, and a limited number of competitors was no longer sufficient to turn a profit.

Acknowledging the role of leadership is not the same thing as agreeing about its attributes and dimensions. Virtually all books written on leadership contain several lists detailing these points and they often overlap. The military - which is the only profession that has studied leadership for over 2,500 years - has become an increasingly popular source of discussion. Designing a crash course in leadership, however, must include at least three basics elements:

• a definition of leadership
• leadership priorities
• leadership attributes and principles

And a more complete picture of leadership would emerge with two other topics:

• the leadership/teamship/followership continuum
• leadership as a subset of love

The basics

There are many definitions of leadership, but a simple way to think of leadership is most useful. Pat Townsend and John Mellecker devised an easy to remember definition of leadership in their book Five-Star Leadership, stating: 'Leadership is the creation of an environment in which others can self-actualise in the process of completing the job.'

By addressing the rational ('completing the job') and emotional ('self-actualise') aspects of the leader-led relationship, this definition leaves room for discussion. It is also short enough to become part of the common vocabulary of an organisation. 'Creation of an environment' in a quality setting requires giving everyone access to decision-making as regards their own jobs - in keeping with Maslow's theories. Suggestion systems and work teams are useful, but simply acknowledging that everyone potentially has something to contribute every day yields even greater results.

As for priorities, no leader can do everything at once. Sometimes circumstance will demand that one action be taken before another, requiring that the leader set priorities as part of the environment. The three priorities of leadership are hierarchical and do not vary from service to manufacturing:

• accomplish the mission
• take care of your people
• create more leaders

Accomplishing the first priority - in the case of business, for example, making a profit or, in a military scenario, winning a battle - gets a leader and his or her unit through today. Taking care of the second one insures that the leader's subordinates will carry the leader and the unit through tomorrow. The third priority promises that the unit will function the 'day after tomorrow' when the current leader is gone. This 'legacy priority' determines how the leader will be remembered when he or she moves on.

A leader normally will try to pursue all three priorities simultaneously. In a crisis, it may be necessary to temporarily suspend overt efforts to create more leaders, although the lessons afforded by example will still be in play. If the crisis escalates or persists, it might be appropriate to temporarily set the second priority aside as well. This becomes possible only if the followers know what is going on and trust that all three priorities will be back on the active list as soon as the crisis abates.

The principles and traits of leadership

The principles of leadership (what leaders do) and traits or attributes (who leaders are) address the issues of competence and character. Leadership is a behaviour, or even a state of mind, rather than merely a position. Actions count and it is what is observed that defines others' judgment of a person as a leader.

In order for a person's behaviour to change, he or she must know what behaviour is desired. What makes leadership both fascinating and challenging, however, is that it is nearly impossible to find two successful leaders whose behaviour is precisely alike. Line up two or more leaders against any scale and they will each score well on some criteria and poorly on others. For instance, if a sense of humour is valued, it might be possible to be a humourless successful leader if followers perceive the individual as being caring and visionary. Conversely, having a sense of humour might 'paper over' a lack of foresight, providing there are compensating virtues. The point of leadership instruction is to introduce students to behavioural goals and to give them a methodology for assessing leaders and deciding what behaviours to emulate and how to go about doing so.

The first step is to agree on a 'leader's list' that describes the sort of leader that a class would like to follow. The military is invaluable in this respect. For instance, the Royal Air College lists these 'qualities of a leader' as efficiency, energy, sympathy resolution, courage, tenacity and personality. Canada's Royal Marine Corps opt for loyalty, professionalism, competence, courage, honesty, common sense, good judgment, confidence, initiative, tact, self-control, humour, personal example, energy, enthusiasm, perseverance, decisiveness and a sense of justice. The United States Armed Forces each have a similar list. Alternatively, any class of students can define a list of top ten principles and top ten characteristics and go from there.

Early leadership training in MBA programmes tended to concentrate on principles of leadership to the detriment of leadership attributes, and for a good reason. It is easier for a person to change what they do than it is to change who they are. And there is a danger of alienating a classroom by talking about personal values.

If a person wants to pay attention to a principle (keep your people informed, for example), it is possible to spell out objective criteria and follow them regardless of personal beliefs. If a person wants to strengthen a trait (integrity, for example), tracking that behaviour is more complex. It takes emotional commitment in addition to planned, factual, repeated behaviour, precisely because the implications can remain largely unseen. In workshops all over the world, however, integrity rates as the number one or number two attribute desired.

The leadership/teamship/followership continuum

If 'creation of an environment' in a quality setting requires giving everyone access to decision-making, there must be a way to discuss this. One of the big phrases being tossed about by consultants these days is 'leadership at every level.' Yet the mental image of an organisation of people, all of whom are trying simultaneously to be in charge of something and direct the actions of others, embodies chaos. On the other hand, stepping back in time to an organisation consisting of a dictatorial boss and a herd of subservient employees is equally not an option.

So how do you strike a balance between freedom and control? Five-Star Leadership discussed leadership as a leadership/ teamship/followership continuum (LTFC) put things in perspective. Begin by looking at figure 1, whereby:

• L - Big L leadership at the far left of the continuum is characterised by decisions about allocation of resources made by one person who accepts the responsibility for the decision: sometimes called 'command'
• l - Small l leadership is the kind of leadership that most people practice every day: the often face-to-face leadership that is necessary to get things done hour-to-hour, day-to-day.
• A - Active followership, as a concept, may seem unfamiliar. But just as there are attributes and principles of leadership, there are attributes and principles of followership that merit the sort of interaction characterised by statements such as, 'I think I see what you want but how about if we do it this way?'
• P - Passive followership is the classic 'whatever' form of followership, followed by minimum effort.

The point of this continuum is that virtually everyone moves up and down the scale throughout the day or week. Recognising this and working with others in that context can help to smooth progress considerably. Almost all of everyone's time is spent in the small l leadership to active followership range, an area that coincides with teamship (figure 2).

As an example, a senior vice president who is told at 8am to 'Get this in place by 4pm this afternoon' by the president, has just started his or her day on the followership end of the continuum - someplace between A and P, depending on how much interaction there was in the course of the conversation.

When the senior vice president calls an immediate meeting of his or her staff and announces: 'We need to get this done very quickly,' he or she is in a role somewhere between the L and the l. The priority is already set, perhaps even disagreed with, but there is still the imperative to convince others of its importance and rally support. Assuming that there is a productive work relationship among the staff and between the staff and the senior vice president, during the next hour or two, each person will contribute to the discussion and, in so doing, move to the l position or perhaps to the A position. The staff is functioning as a team; teamship reaches from just to the left of the l on the continuum to just to the right of the A.

Once a consensus is reached, the senior vice president can move comfortably back to midway between the L and the l, summarise the agreed action and send staff members to get busy with implementation. During the walk from the meeting, the department heads shift from being to the right of the A to being to the left of the l while the senior vice president types out the official directive - from a position just to the right of the L.

The LTF continuum applies outside of the workplace as well. A lower-level employee who spends the majority of his or her workday between the A and the P might go home and then head down to the park for the evening because he or she is the captain of the football team - a position that moves his or her experiences to the area between the L and the l.

Understanding the LTFC makes it possible to teach and sustain leadership at every level by helping us understand shifting roles. A quality team leader, for instance, maybe in a non-management role in the neighbourhood of the A most of the working day and then jump to the l when it is time to talk with his or her quality team about the latest ideas for improvements. A common vocabulary and acknowledgement of this simple concept emboldens followers who might otherwise be reticent to come forward and emphasises to executives that they need not always be 'in charge'. It helps everyone to think of leadership as a behaviour, not a position. For example, UICI Insurance Center, a company of fewer than 1,000 employees in North Richland Hills, Texas, parlayed this understanding coupled with quality teams into almost US$47m (£24m) savings over a five-year period. Teams have implemented over 12,500 ideas, most of them originating at the non-executive level.

Leadership as love

Employees may say, 'I love my boss' but it is rare that anyone looks beyond the casual statement. If asked point blank to elaborate, the response is likely to be that it's just a figure of speech. While that may be true, it has a greater truth behind it. Perhaps the most obvious thing that leadership and love have in common is the act of caring about the welfare of others. Love is what separates the technique of leadership from its philosophy. This can be summed up in the phrase, 'A manager cares that the job gets done; a leader cares that the job gets done and about the people who do the job.'

If one's love for another implies caring for the well-being, physical and mental wellbeing of that person, failure to notice or care about a decline in the quality of their state of existence is taken as proof that: 'You don't love me any more.' Similarly, if the workforce perceives that their leader doesn't care about their working conditions he or she will be judged a poor leader.

A would-be leader must not only be capable of love, but also of allowing himself or herself to be loved - and of understanding the awesome responsibilities incurred when one seeks and accepts the love of others. To love someone and to seek their love is to make a commitment to them, a promise to work hard to better them and to better yourself. It is a promise to work with them towards a mutual goal, a higher state - be that an improved marriage or a higher quality, innovative company.

This is not to say that a person in a leadership position who loves the people assigned to his or her responsibility will automatically be a great leader. The technical knowledge, the dedication, the personal integrity so often discussed are definitely necessary. Without the ability to love and be loved, however, he or she will not be a great, and perhaps not even a good, leader. Love is what gives leadership power; it is what makes followers willingly acknowledge the technical knowledge and treat the dedication and personal integrity as something to emulate rather than simply applaud.

The relationship between love and leadership is not a one-for-one match. Leadership is the subset of love, not the equal. But taking what one has learned from relationship experiences, for better or worse - with parents, spouses, children, friends or acquaintances - can greatly enhance a person's leadership skills. Leadership is a very personal connection.

Long term impact of leadership training

Leadership is essential to quality and quality is essential for commercial or organisational success. How else to explain why bookstore shelves groan under the weight of all the 'You can be a leader too' books? Merely reading the books, however, is not enough. Leadership is a behaviour and, as such, it can be learned and taught. It just takes thought and practice.

Within the context of a quality process, leadership training prior to the launch of a quality effort can determine its outcome. A company that creates leaders at every level - leaders who understand the nature of leadership, who know how to continuously improve their skills as leaders and who can move back and forth on the LTF continuum as appropriate - have taken a major step toward profitable success

Biography

Pat Townsend is a quality practitioner and has several books and numerous articles published on the topics of quality, leadership and innovation. He also incorporates his unique views into multi-day workshops for managers. Joan Gebhardt is his co-author and co-presenter.