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Unit 5: Quality Management

5.1.5 Leadership Notes

According to Steve Forte, the CEO of Jet Airways, “In the service industry, especially the
competitive airline industry, knowing WHAT to do is not difficult; the HOW and convincing the
team of the WHY is more often the problem.….Doing all the things right in the service profit
chain is required. One has to only look at the number of start-up airlines who have not made it
in India or anywhere else in the world over the last few years (to understand this)….Without the
vision and drive of its founder and Chairman, Naresh Goyal, Jet Airways could easily have been
one of the failures.”
Quality has often been likened to a state of mind. You may have the best equipment but may not
be providing a quality product. The job of management is leadership. It is the leaders who
establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. Management has to create and
maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the
organization’s quality objectives. It has to lay down the standards with clear responsibility and
authority for implementation of the quality program.
Develop a Strategy

The quality strategy of the organization has to be based on the resources of the organization.
Deming suggested using ‘PDCA cycle’ as the basis for forming and implementing the quality
strategy, while Juran suggested the ‘Quality Council’ to design and implement the overall
quality strategy and ‘Vital Few and the Useful Many’ concept to identify areas of improvements.
These are discussed in this section.

PDCA Cycle

Deming began working in Japan in 1950 and was instrumental in building the Japanese industry
into an economic world power. His philosophy was based on the idea that problems in a
production process are due to flaws in the design of the system, as opposed to being rooted in
the motivation or professional commitment of the workforce. Under Deming’s approach, quality
is maintained and improved when leaders, managers and the workforce understand and commit
to constant customer satisfaction through continuous quality improvement.

Figure 5.2: The PDCA Cycle

Plan Do

Act Check

To facilitate achieving quality goals, Deming and his colleague, Shewhart, promoted the PDCA
cycle—a plan of action to lead the quality movement:
1. Plan

2. Do

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