July 2001
Volume 8 • Number 3
Contents
Factors Related to Employee Perception of Their Leaders’
Commitment to Implement Continuous Quality Improvement
by Lee Jones, Florida State University
The difficult role of today’s leaders in higher
education is to look carefully at the critical processes
of the university and define a clear vision and mission.
The role employees play is significant in shaping the mission
of the university. Some universities have focused their
quality initiatives without the benefit of feedback and
support from all levels of the academy. The purpose of this
study was to investigate factors related to how frontline
employees within a large Midwestern university perceive
their leaders’ commitment toward implementing continuous
quality improvement on the job. Investigating these factors
provides a framework for how leaders and frontline employees
might come to create a shared vision for organizational
outcomes. The major findings of this study suggest that
leaders within higher education will have to alter the way
they manage to ensure that a climate is developed that will
include the knowledge and skills of all employees within
the organization.
Key words: frontline employees, leadership, quality
INTRODUCTION
There is growing unrest about the quality of higher education
from local, state, and federal levels of government. Poorly
prepared college graduates, uninformed professionals, outdated
instructional methods, dysfunctional workflow processes, and
leader unwillingness and inability to change are just a few
of the challenges that higher education is experiencing. Other
challenges include a major dispute over the mission of the
university; meeting the needs of a more diverse student population;
the mistrust that many external constituencies have of the
university; and fiscal exigency (Cornesky, et al. 1991). There
is a major erosion of confidence in the leadership and the
quality of higher education in this country. Respect for colleges
and universities is in grave danger.
Universities are generally seen as large enterprises that
have assets in excess of a billion dollars. The faculty and
administrative staffs of America’s universities are the
largest group of intellectuals in any formal educational setting.
Although universities spend millions of dollars for faculty
and administrative salaries, universities are still an enigma
and a paradox (Anderson and Meyerson 1992). Many within the
university do not know where the university is headed. The
problems within universities are not necessarily with faculty/staff
salaries, but rather with the university’s unwillingness
to respond to the needs of society and leaders who are unable
to respond to change.
In the past decade, higher education seemingly settled into
a conglomerate of intellectual islands where the educational
and social needs of a variety of students were met. During
the beginning of the 1980s, higher education enjoyed what
many in the academy called “fiscal flexibility”
(Anderson and Meyerson 1992). The academy had the luxury of
sincere collegiality and expanding budgets that resulted in
an increase in academic and administrative departmental spending
and a leisurely workplace. Universities had no real or pressing
issues that threatened their future. In fact, many of the
faculty and administrators saw the university as a safe haven
where accountability for the academic and administrative performance
was not an issue (Selin 1991). The university functioned practically
without worry of major external influences.
Like many other profit and nonprofit organizations, higher
education has been plagued with criticism about the lack of
administrative and academic leadership to manage the academy,
given the major transformation that is occurring (Lewis and
Smith 1994). Problems with administrative leaders range from
their inability to actually manage the changing organizational
dynamics to operating a dysfunctional system that is based
on fear. The lack of vision, insight, and administrative skill
contributes to the lack of formal and informal management
training (Martin 1994).
During the rapid growth of higher education in the 1960s and
1970s, unskilled or inefficient managers set the stage for
long-term problems associated with strategic planning and
development, fiscal management, and organizational development
(Cornesky and Andrew 1992). Administrators without leadership
qualities or visionary ability generally yield to their fear
of the unknown when confronted with change. These and other
problems with higher education’s leadership affect how
employees view the organization and the level of trust they
have in their leaders’ ability to manage them. Keith
and Girling (1991) suggest that universities can no longer
ignore the public’s criticism of their leadership as
a mere expression of “intellectual shallowness.”
Deming (1986), Juran (1988), and Crosby (1990) have been a
few of the leading pioneers and scholars in the quality movement.
They offer theoretical foundations and many practical techniques
on how the university can be transformed. Implementing the
quality techniques offered by these scholars will lead to
self-directed organizations that have: a defined mission;
organized processes for implementing goals and objectives;
value-driven leaders who believe in the human potential and
who makes things happen;
commitment to customer satisfaction; and the effective means
for ensuring quality throughout the organization (Bonstingl
1993).
There are at least four major assumptions that are the basis
for why universities and public colleges must change and consider
implementing continuous quality improvement initiatives (Lewis
and Smith 1994). These are as follows:
- Continuous quality improvement builds on the traditions
of concern for quality that has characterized higher education
in the United States and throughout the world.
- Continuous quality improvement recognizes the need for
the continuous development of the people who are a part
of the higher education system, whether faculty, staff,
or students.
- Continuous quality improvement involves principles applicable
to institutional administration and classroom teaching,
thus bridging the gap between traditionally separate parts
of the system.
- Continuous quality improvement helps universities meet
the challenges of the twenty-first century.
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