Higher Education Quarterly Volume 49 Issue 3 1995 [Doi 10.1111%2Fj.1468-2273.1995.Tb01680.x] Robin Middlehurst -- Leadership, Quality and Institutional Effectiveness

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@ Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1995, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UKand 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.Higher Education Quarterly 0951-5224Volume 49 No. 3, July 1995

Leadership, Quality andInstitutional Effectiveness

Robin Middlehurst, Higher Education Quality Council, ProfessorGeorge Gordon, University of Strathclyde

Abstract

Institutions o f higher education have been slower than commercial enterprisestorealise the links between leadership and quality. Howevery changes in theinternal and external environment of universities and colleges are bringing theseconnections to the fore. Thi s paper presents an overvieeV of cuwent thinkingon

quality and leadership in the context of institutional effectiveness.The authors

explore di ffe rent interpretations of leadership and quality, and examine theirpo tentid contribution to managing change and to the achievement of a culture ofquality enhancement in higher education.

On eadership

The concept and practice of leadership has received growing attention inthe business sector, the literature on the subject revealing at least six

different, though overlapping, schools of thought. These are beginning topermeate into higher education (Bensimon et al. 1989, Middlehurst,1993). A twentieth century overview is represented in Table 1 on p. 268.

In its earliest manifestations, the concept of leadership was inextricablytied to the notion of ‘a leader’, that is, leadership was viewed as anexpression of the personal qualities and characteristics of an individual. I twas assumed that these qualities were largely acquired by birth andresearch therefore sought to identify both the relevant characteristics andthe circumstances which led to their emergence (Stogdill, 1948).A search

for leadership qualities is still present, for example, in the selectionprocedures for Vice Chancellors in higher education (Middlehurst et al.1992).

From t h i s position, only a slight shift of emphasis was needed to movefrom an examination of traits to a focus on the behaviour and style ofleaders (Stogdill and Coons, 1952; Blake and Mouton, 1964; Adair, 1%8),



268 Higher Education Quarterly

Table IOverview of twentieth-century thought

Period Theoridapproaches Theme

Up to late 1940s Trait theories

Late 1940s to late 1960s Behaviod theories

Late 1960s to present Contingency theories

Late 1960s to present

1970s to present

Power and influencetheories

Cultural and symbolictheories

1980s to present Cognitive theories

Leadership is linked topersonal qualities

Leadership is associatedwith behaviour and style

Leadership is affected bythe context and situation

Leadership is associatedwith use of power

Leadership is the‘management ofmeaning’

Leadership is a socialattribution

Adapted fmm Bensimon cr d . 1989; Bryman, 1992; Published in Middlehurst, 1993

and from here, to a recognition that different contexts and circumstancestend to produce different patterns of leadership action. The relevance ofcontext to leadership practice was identified in contingency theories ofleadership (Fiedler, 1967, 1978; Hersey and Blanchard, 1969, and 1977)and has remained a constant in later studies. The different contexts ofbusiness and higher education organizations are likely to affect leadershippractice, although the degree and precise nature is more a matter ofspeculation than informed by substantial research.

In recent studies of leadership, attention has been given to the ways inwhich power is used by leaders to direct and motivate followers (House,1988), or is exchanged in reciprocal relationships between leaders andfollowers in the interests of smooth organizational functioning and theachievement of corporate goals (Hollander, 1985; Kouzes and Posner,1987). In this area, considerable interest has been aroused by the notionsof ‘transactional’ and ‘transformational’ leadership (Burns, 1978; Bass,1985). The two are often contrasted against each other and in m a n y waysreflect earlier distinctions made between management and leadership(Zaleznik, 1977). Transactional leadership, it is suggested, involves a socialexchange in which follower compliance is ‘bought’ by the leader throughthe provision of a variety of benefits, while transformational leadership is



Leadership and Quality 269

more closely associated with inspirational and visionary actions which leadto higher order changes in attitude and performance wherein the ultimatepurposes of individuals and organizations are addressed.

Interest in these aspects of leadership cannot be disassociated fromchanges occurring in the external environment of organizations. Economicrecession, rapid developments in information technology, and shi f ts insocial attitudes towards formal authority and towards individual freedomand self-determination (Taylor, 1992) have played their part in changingthe context of leadership thought as practitioners and researchers havegrappled with new situations. A recognition of this interplay between

external and internal environments emerges in the notion of organizationsas open systems (Katz and Kahn, 1978; Weick, 1976) and is made s t i l lmore directly by Kotter (1988) when he argues that leadership andmanagement within organizations should be seen as two complementarysystems of action. Leadership, Kotter suggests, is needed in order toachieve change in organizations, while management is required to copewith the increasing complexity of modern businesses. These argumentsare also relevant to many aspects of academic organizations.

More recent interpretations of leadership represent a paradigm shiftwhich is also evident in organization theory and which parallels a similarshift in the parent discipline of sociology. In sociological terms,distinctions can be made between the functionalist and interpretiveparadigms (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) and these can be identifkd in theleadership literature as distinctions between trait, behaviourist, and powerand influence theories on the one hand, and cultural, symbolic andcognitive theories on the other. In the first group, organizations areviewed as concrete entities in which leaders, as powerful actors, are able toexert tangible influence on organizational outcomes. In the second group,organizations are not viewed as concrete entities, but as psycho-socialcreations born out of the interactions, perceptions and interpretations ofindividuals and groups. Leadership operates within this complex socialand psychological system by offering a way of finding meaningful patternsin the behaviour of others and by helping to develop common under-standings of the nature of reality both within and outside the organization.At a time of change and upheaval, this view of leadership becomes

particularly important and has been linked to the concept of ‘managingchange’ with particular emphasis on changes in organizational culture.

To round off t h i s brief discussion, mention must be made of cognitivetheories of leadership (Cohen and March, 1986; Smith and Peterson,1988, Hunt, 1992). Where cultural ideas focus on the nature of the social

reality given expression by individuals and groups, cognitive i deas are

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focused more on the ways in which individuals construct reality. AsBensimon et al. (1989) neatly put it, ‘leaders are individuals believed byfollowers to have caused events’ (p. 23). The essential distinction betweenculturalhymbolic and cognitive approaches to leadership is that the formerstress the role of leaders in ‘inventing‘ reality for followers, while the latteremphasize the importance of followers in ‘inventing‘ leaders. Theimportant point for practitioners is that leadership action is constantlyconstrained and shaped by the perceptions and interactions both of leadersand of their constituents based on what is expected or deemed appropriatein relation to leadership in a particular context or set of circumstances.

Within universities, where tradition is balanced by a need for change andwhere professional autonomy is often in tension with managerial control,these different perspectives of leadership offer a means of understandingleadership and provide a range of choice for practitioners.

On quality

Like leadership, the notion of quality is subject to a number of different

interpretations. In common parlance, ‘quality’ is used to describe a levelor standard of satisfaction with a product or process (a quality car, aquality wine or a quality education) and to define the essential features orcharacteristics of something, for example, the quality of a conifer is that itbears cones. Some of these nuances have been retained in the use of theterm ‘quality’ within the business and education sectors.

Within the business world, the most commonly accepted definition ofquality is ‘the totality of features and characteristics of a product or servicethat bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs’ (BS 4778). ThisBritish Standard also underpins the International 9000 series of standardswhich have now been adapted into the national standards systems of morethan sixty countries (SEPSU, 1994). The fuller defintion of quality,above, is commonly shortened into quality as ‘fitness for purpose’ wherepurpose is related to customer needs and where customers ultimatelydetermine the level of satisfaction with the relevant product or service.

In higher education, d e f ~ t i o n s f quality have not been so clear(Green, 1994). Struggles continue between those who identify quality in

higher education with ‘excellence’ or exceptional performance measuredagainst some implicit ‘gold standard’ (whether of student achievement,teaching or research) and those who accept a ‘fitness for purpose’definition whereby learners or research users, for example, have a say indefining both ‘fitness’ and ‘purpose’. These debates have opened the doorto further questions related to ‘fitness of purpose in higher education and

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from this point into discussions about the relationship between quality andeducational standards.

A concern with product and service quality has existed in both thebusiness and higher education sectors for some time, but, in Britain,focused and systematic attention on quality assurance and qualitymanagement across sectors is a phenomenon of the 1980s. The work ofAmerican quality specialists (Deming, 1982; Juran, 1988) was initiallytaken up in post-war Japan and came to Europe in the 1960s in the area ofdefence procurement, for example, in the NATO Allied Quality AssurancePublications (SEPSU, 1944). Quality systems entered the civil sector in

the UK in the late 1970s.Attention to quality emerged for two main reasons: first, a need to

ensure safety and consistency in manufactured goods; and second, agrowing need to differentiate products and services on the basis of qualityin an increasingly competitive global market. In the UK, governmentpressure led to the establishment of a national assessment and certificationinfrastructure designed to offer third party assurance about qualitymanagement systems. Such systems are designed, essentially, to produce

consistency in products and services and the external assessment of thesesystems against a national (or international) standard is designed to satisfycustomers about the performance of a supplier. Such third party assurancereplaced the need for second party assurance whereby the customerhimselfherself will need to check or inspect the systems of a supplierdirectly. Third party assessment of this kind has the added value of beinga nationally/internationally recognised standard. A n important point isthat these quality systems may encourage, but not necessarily ensure,product or service quality since consistency may not equate with ‘good’quality. Quality systems of this kind may be more appropriate for massproduction than for bespoke products and services.

Within the British higher education sector, the BS5750 approach toexternal quality assurance is paralleled by the work of Quality Auditwithin the Higher Education Quality Council (formerly the Committee ofVice-Chancellor’s & Principals (CVCP) Academic Audit Unit) and is nowbeing promulgated more widely in European approaches to qualityassurance in higher education sponsored by the Conference of European

Rectors (CRE) and the European Union (EU) respectively. The Auditapproach examines whether institutions have in place quality systemswhich are likely to ensure consistency of practice in the management ofteaching and learning across an institution and to test whether thesesystems are working effectively. A major difference between the Auditapproach in higher education and the IS0 9000 approach in the

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commercial sector is that the quality systems of universities and collegesare not examined against a national standards (although the areas to beincluded in an audit are defined nationally), but instead, the systems aretested, by members of the peer group, against institutional mission andobjectives. A ‘fitness for purpose’ definition of quality (where purposeequates with mission) is adopted.

A different external approach to the examination and judgement ofquality is undertaken by the three higher education funding councils inBritain (and another variant of these models is operated in the furthereducation sector). In this case, the quality of teaching and learning at

subject level is assessed by peer-group teams, headed by a lead assessor.The starting point for judgement is a self-assessment of the subject areaundertaken by the unit concerned, officially against their own objectives,but guided by the elements of the assessment framework which areoutlined by the funding councils. Following an assessment of thedocumentation supplied by the department (and in many cases, a visit), ajudgement is reached about the quality of teaching and learning (Gordonand Partington, 1993).

Within the higher education sector in Britain, the Audit and Assess-ment approaches operate at national level to offer third party assurance tothe public and other interested parties about the quality of highereducation provision. In many ways, the tw o approaches are complementaryin that one focuses on institutional management of quality through aconcentration on quality systems while the other examines, more directly,the process of teaching and learning in the various academic units of theinstitution. However, neither approach, as yet, directly examines thestandard of academic and educational attainment within institutions anddepartments, and cross-comparisons are avoided as far as possible.

The assessment of research in Britain is closer to a ‘gold standard’approach. Small teams of leading peers assess the quantity and quality ofresearch based upon units of assessment (departments or groups ofindividuals in a cognate area) and according to an agreed ranking scalewhich is specifically intended to identify and promote international andnational excellence in research. In 1992 the rankings ranged from 1 (low) to5 (high) and the results have been applied by the funding councils in the

formula for the annual allocation of resources to individual institutions ofhigher education.

In addition to these national systems, a number of other approaches toquality exist within higher education in Britain, some of which haveparallels in other parts of Europe. Most universities and colleges have asystem of external examining at programme level, and professional bodies

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operate a system of accreditation for courses (or centres) linked toprofessional competence awards. Britain’s new national system for theassessment of occupational competence is operated within some uni-versities and colleges, particularly at the higher levels of vocationalqualifications (levels four and five) and the emerging general nationalvocational qualifications. The standards and quality assurance arrange-ments relevant to the National Council for Vocational Qualifications(NCVQ) awards are set outside higher education and are not, to date, fullyintegrated with or accepted by higher education. In addition to theseapproaches to quality control and assurance, some institutions, or parts of

institutions, have adopted quality management systems, which haveemerged from the business sector: BS5750 (IS09000) as described above,the Investors in People (IIP) national standard, or the Total QualityManagement (TQM) approach.

Before leaving this overview of approaches to quality assurance, IIP andTQM should be mentioned in more detail since they begin to illustrate therelationship between leadership and quality.

The Investors in People standard is a quality framework which is

designed to link investment in human resources to the achievement ofbusiness objectives. It is a ‘national standard’ which focuses upon four keyelements: the commitment of an organization (as expressed by itsleadership) towards employees in their achievement of business objectives;the planning and review process of the organization; the action taken by anorganization to train and develop individuals on recruitment andthroughout their employment; and the ways in which an organizationevalutes its investment in training and development to assess achievementand improve future effectiveness. It incorporates best practice expecta-tions in human resource management. In Britain, approximately fortyuniversities and colleges are actively working towards this standard or areconsidering doing so, and one university has achieved it. Recognition,which is‘based on a self assessment verified by an external assessmentagainst national standards (undertaken using an audit methodology), isgranted for three years before a reassessment is necessary.

Total Quality Management is both a philosophy of quality and asystematic approach to quality management (often incorporating theBS5750/IS09000 series of quality standards). It is based on the principlesof problem prevention, commitment to and involvement in qualitythroughout the organization, and on continuous improvement towards thegoal of customer satisfaction and ‘delight’. Dr Edwards Deming is widelyhonoured as the father of the quality movement (Collard, 1993), hisdistinctive contribution being to challenge prevailing Western attitudes

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towards quality, particularly in post-war industry, where improvingquality was widely viewed as leading to increased costs, thereby affectingproductivity. Japanese market success, using Deming’s principles,challenged these views. Deming argued for bringing the customer into theorganization and for creating closer links between worker and supplier inthe interests of continuous improvement of quality.

Deming was supported by other specialists, such as Juran and Crosby.The former contributed the notion of ‘managerial breakthrough’ whichdistinguishes between controYinspection of quality and breakthrough orprevention of unsatisfactory quality by appropriate management systems

and attitudes. Crosby built on these principles, stressing the importance ofpeople and their attitudes in the achievement of quality and continuousimprovement, and arguing that it is cheaper to do the job ‘right first time’.(Crosby, 1984). In Crosby’s view, the only performance measurement isthe cost of quality and the only performance standard is zero defects.

If these various approaches to quality management are put together, wecan identify a staged development, from an emphasis on quality systems,towards a greater concentration on people, to a ‘total’ approach combining

systems and people. In recent years, attempts have been made to emphasisethese linkages more strongly and to demonstrate the relationship betweenquality systems and business results. Examples of these approaches can befound in the European and British Quality Awards (established in 1992and 1993 respectively) and in the Malcolm Baldridge Award in the USA(established in 1988). In the United States work is in progress aimed atextending the Malcolm Baldridge Award to higher education (Seymour,1994).

The various Quality Awards are based on a total quality managementapproach and their strength lies in an emphasis on a rigorous self-appraisalprocess which allows organizations to identify their strengths andweaknesses and the areas in which improvements can be made. The self-appraisal process, which is the basis of the European TQM model,concentrates on ‘enablers’ and ‘results’ as identified in the diagram below(fig. 1). Essentially, the model states that

Customer satisfaction, people (employee) satisfaction and impact on society areachieved through leadership driving policy and strategy, people management,resources and processes, which lead ultimately to excellence 111 business results.(Merli, 1993).

The core values at the heart of the Baldridge Award are: customer-drivenquality; leadership; continuous improvement; employee participation anddevelopment; fast response; design quality and prevention; long-range





Figure I

4ENABLERS RESULTS

The European Model; Merli 1993

outlook; management by fact; partnership development; corporateresponsibility and citizenship. The framework adopts seven categorieswith the greatest weighting being attached to customer focus andsatisfaction.

Leadership and quality

Within IIP, TQM and the Quality Awards, leadership and quality areexplicitly linked. Leadership is seen as necessary at strategic andoperational levels in order to achieve collective commitment to the qualityprogramme and to drive it forward. Leadership is also seen as necessary atgroup and individual levels, for example in the organization of qualitycircles or for guiding the work of task forces and projects.

If we refer back to the different concepts of leadership identified in thesection above there are a number of relevant ideas. First, models whichemphasise the bahaviour and style of leaders, and the functions ofleadership are useful in relation to the achievement of quality andcontinuous improvement. Secondly, models of transactional and trans-formational leadership are important, particularly the latter in itsassociation with leading cultural change. Since commitment to a totaiquality approach often requires considerable change in attitudes and

organizational culture, the techniques of transformational leadership arelikely to be helpful. Thirdly, cognitive approaches to leadership arereadily transferable to quality management since they focus uponindividual perceptions and interpretations of the world. In many cases,understandings of what constitutes quality differ, as do interpretations ofthe need for formal quality management approaches. Leadership is needed

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to interpret and shape collective and individual understandings both ofquality itself and of the external imperatives related to its achievement andassurance. The ‘symbolic’ importance of kitemarks, national standardsand different kinds of awards also has parallels in relation to leadership asan emblem of organizational functioning.

The European Quality Award (Table 2) concentrates on six aspects ofleadership which have been adapted for higher education for the purposesof this paper.

In essence, leadership is important in relation to quality because it offersa vision and idea of what is possible, a strategy for moving in this direction

and a means of achieving individual and collective commitment to thegoals of continuous improvement which underpin quality. At a time ofconsiderable change in which attention to quality has become pressing (forpolitical, economic and social reasons), leadership is needed to interpret,to help shape, to motivate and to enlist the support of individuals andgroups in relation to the changes required. Leadership is also needed todefine and preserve those aspects of higher education tradition which areessential.

Leadership, quality and institutional effectiveness

In his review of the literature on institutional effectiveness, Yorke (1990)notes five approaches to defining institutional effectiveness: in terms ofgoal achievement, resource acquisition, social justice (for example, accessand equal opportunities), internal processes and participant satisfaction.There are close parallels here with Birnbaum’s (1988) three measures ofleadership effectiveness in higher education: goal achievement , esourceacquisition and constitutent satisfaction. The last category is broader thanYorke’s and hides a necessary tension since higher education has a varietyof different constituencies which it must satisfy. The needs of thesedifferent groups are not necessarily the same and can be in conflict witheach other. Leadership thus involves negotiating between these variedconstituences.

In Cameron’s work on organizational effectiveness, his review ofeffectiveness models and exploratory fieldwork suggested that effective-

ness was perceived as successful transactions encompassing resourceinputs, process and outputs. The nine scales of effectiveness that hederived from this analysis and early research were:

0 student educational satisfaction0 student academic development

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TABLE 2Aspects of Leadership: European Quality Award

(Merli, 1993, p. 1934)

1 Visible involvement of senior professionals and managers in leadingquality management e.g. how they communicate with staff; act as rolemodels; make themselves accessible and listen to staff ; assist in trainingand developing staff.

2 Leadership towards a consistent Total Quality culture, e.g. howprofessionals and managers are involved in assessing awareness ofquality; are involved in reviewing progress in quality; include commit-ment to and achievement of quality in appraisal and promotion of staff atall levels.

Recognition and appreciation of the efforts and successes of individualsand teams, e.g. at local, divisional and organizational levels; of groupsoutside the organization (graduates, suppliers and other stakeholders orcustomers).

Support of Total Quality by provision of appropriate resources andassistance, e.g. how managers provide support through: fundingfacilitation; funding improvement activity; ‘championing’.

Leading involvement with stakeholders and clients, e.g. how profes-sionals and managers take positive steps to: meet students and otherconstituencies; establish and participate in partnership relationships;establish and participate in joint improvement teams.

Active promotion of quality and its management outside the organizationthrough: membership of professional bodies; publication of articles andbooks; lectures at conferences and seminars; assistance to local com-munities.

3

4

5

6

0 student career development0 student personal development0 faculty and administrator employment satisfaction0 professional development and quality of the faculty0 systems openness and community interaction0 ability to acquire resources0 organizational health

I n 1990, Lysons and Hatherly tested Cameron’s dimensions ofeffectiveness in British higher education, having earlier tested them inAustralia (Lysons and Ryder, 1988). T he researchers found that the ninescales were robust in Britain, with organizational health being a decisivefactor. In 1991, internal constituents perceived British universities to be

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‘healthy’ in terms of their smooth running and productive internalfunctioning (Lysons and Hatherley, 1991), yet by 1994, an externalcommentator of the British higher education scene was not so sanguine(Trow, 1994). Even in 1991, Lysons and Hatherley noted changes in theenvironment of universities which were likely to have an impact on‘effectiveness’, for example, resource constraints, increases in studentnumbers and associated pressures on staff, greater emphasis on externalaccountability and policing of institutions, pressure for change in curriculaand competitive pressures epitomized in league tables of high and lowperforming institutions.

Cameron’s dimensions of effectiveness have links to present frameworksfor judging quality, but go beyond these. In many ways they are closer tothe elements of TQM and in particular, to the ‘enablers’ and ‘results’approach of the European Quality Award. Cameron’s emphasis on‘successful transactions’ is echoed in a paper by Schmidtlein (1991) inwhich he describes higher education institutions in terms of ‘networks ofexchange relationships’ in which the media of exchange are more thaneconomic. They include, beyond economic goods, social assets (such as

reputation and status), human skills and qualities, and information.Schmidtlein argues that views of an organization and its decision-makingprocesses affect the way events occur and decisions are made as well as theoutcomes of the decision-making process in terms of quality, change andimprovement of the organization. This supports cultural, symbolic andcognitive ideas about leadership.

A t this point, we can begin to tease out the links between quality,leadership and institutional effectiveness. The first point to make is thatthe achievement of ‘quality’, particularly in a changing environment, is adifficult and complex process involving a number of elements andtransactions. Understanding the range of elements involved, interpretingtheir significance and relationships and negotiating these interpretationswith others takes time and effort. Achieving a critical mass of sharedmeanings and commitment to go forward requires leadership of a highorder, spread at many levels of an institution. The establishment andoperation of quality systems by themselves will not produce qualityoutcomes or ’institutional effectiveness’, particularly where such systems

are generated solely or primarily in response to external assessment andaccountability. Leadership is also required to explain, justify and promotethe utility and effectiveness of quality models and processes.

This point is made more strongly in two studies of well-performingCanadian public sector organizations (Reports of the Auditor General,1988 and 1990). The authors note in the first report that the key

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ingredients of these well-performing organizations were, first, theiremphasis on people in terms of challenge, encouragement and develop-ment. The second emphasis was on participative leadership which isdescribed as ‘guiding by being creative, by detecting patterns, byarticulating purpose and mission, and by fostering commitment to thegoals of the organization’ in contrast to being directive by means ofauthoritarianism or coercion (1988, 4.78).

A third element was innovative work styles where staff reflect on theirperformance, environment and opportunities, learning from experienceand being innovative, creative and flexible. Strong monitoring, feedback

and control systems are used, but only as tools. Members of theseorganizations reviewed their activities, consulted and collaborated as amatter of course, and the organization was described as ‘controlling itselfrather than depending on control from an outside authority’ (1988,4.84).

The fourth element was a strong client orientation, focusing on clientneeds and preferences, where staff satisfaction was derived from servingthe client. Interaction was strong internally and strong externally. In their

second report, the authors focused particularly on values and service inrelation to performance and noted two management polarities: control andcompliance versus commitment and caring. They recognised that publiclyfunded organizations were likely to require elements of both polarities andrecommended an approach described as ‘management through under-standing’ which created a balance between the requirements of managersand the needs of professionals and their clients. The key was to explainactions and requirements in order to promote improved understandings ofdifferent ‘clients’ and thus to improve responsiveness. These findings arelikely to resonate within higher education.

In addition to investigating the common attributes of well-performingorganizations, the authors tried to isolate those processes by which theattributes were acquired. An important finding was that ‘people need tohave a certain mind-set’, which was seen as an amalgam of strongly heldbeliefs, of values such as dedication, and an innate need to improve theorganization in which they worked. These positive attitudes demonstratedthat ‘we can always be better and do better’.

While the process of developing these attitudes was sometimesprompted by a crisis or a threat, sometimes by a strong demand from aninfluential outside group or an obvious opportunity, it could also betriggered by the arrival of a new leader. The authors noted that leaders caninitiate change and can create the conditions for continued support ofchange. However, for the long-term survival of change, and particularly if

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the process of continuous improvement is to become embedded in theculture, leadership has to be seen as a shared function, rather than asemanating from a single powerful individual. The leadership role ofsetting a direction, of establishing standards, gaining commitment andmaintaining motivation as well as taking risks and being creative andinnovative is needed at many levels of an organization if quality is to beachieved and improved.

The Canadian authors pointed to a further important part of the ‘mind-set’ of effectiveness which was debate, reflection and selfkollectivescrutiny. They also noted that once initiated, the process of improvement

and change tends to drive itself. They described the process in theseterms:

People at all levels discuss, explore, reflect and scrutinize themselves and theiractivities. They bring together ideas which sometimes result in disagreements.However, because of the mutual trust and respect among people at differentlevels, these ideas become starting points for innovations that result in newways of working and achieving. This process gradually becomes ingrained inthe culture of the organization and, ultimately, people tend not to be conscious

that this is something special or remarkable (1988, 4.95).

If the various approaches to quality and effectiveness are broughttogether, we can see that some critical ingredients are leadership,particular attitudes and values (including dedication and service), atten-tion to people and to innovation, combined with rigorous self-evaluation.

Leadership, quality and professionals

Universities and colleges have been described as organizations ofprofessionals (Harman, 1990) where the professionals (notably theacademics) exercise high degrees of autonomy. They have considerablediscretion over what and how they teach and over what and how theyresearch. These professionals also have strong traditions of involvement incollective decision-making and institutional governance and have loyaltieswhich extend outside the institution to the wider community of scholarswthn their discipline.

Universities have also been described as ‘loosely-coupled systems’(Weick, 1976) where departments and units are only loosely connected tocentral institutional functions and where lateral relationships are alsoweak. Recent economic and political pressures, reinforced by the nationalexternal quality assurance and assessment regimes, have encouraged agreater degree of corporateness, but market forces and competitive

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Leadership and Quality 28 1

pressures have at the same time prompted an almost opposite movetowards greater devolution of managerial control and responsibility. Insome cases, the centre resembles a holding company for the satellite andlargely independent educational units (Davies, 1987).

These organizational arrangements and the accompanying degree ofprofessional autonomy mitigate against the introduction of qualitymanagement models which are based on different organizational forms,particularly those of bureaucratic hierarchies, or so it would at firstappear. If interpreted slavishly, this is likely to be true. However, if someof the central elements of the quality models described above are

extracted, and in particular, if the appropriate ‘mind-set’ is developed,then it would seem that quality and institutional effectiveness can beachieved within the context of professional autonomy. While a degree ofprofessional autonomy needs to be given up in the interests of institutionalconsistency, particularly where larger numbers of students are involved, acommitment to high standards of service and performance is already partof a professional ethic.

Many of the cornerstones of approaches to quality exist in universities;

participative leadership, innovation and individual autonomy, and often,strong relationships with students and dedication to research. Someingredients that are either missing or weakly developed are an emphasis onrigorous self-assessment (as a matter of routine practice), on teamworkand collaborative enquiry across the organization and including all staffgroups, and on training and development at a l l stages of professionalcareers. Relationships between customers and suppliers may also need toshift from a traditional ‘provider’ approach to provider-client andpartnership. If one combines these missing elements, it seems likely thatinterpretations of autonomy, trust and professional standards will needredefinition. To produce such changes in attitudes and behaviour, in theinterests of professional accountability and continuing improvements inthe quality of higher education, effective leadership and a supportivemanagement framework will be necessary. Models and approaches fromoutside higher education, if adapted to the academic context, can providevaluable ideas and tools for change.

Examples, opportunities, issues

All change, however initiated, requires strong leadership. An institution musthave active leadership to allow questions to be asked; o support new ideas, toimplement change; and to support an ongoing, continuous method forinstitutional self-examination and improvement. (Rogers 1994)

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These views were expressed by James Rogers, Executive Director of theSouthern Association for Colleges and Schools, in the context of anargument for the value of benchmarking in accreditation of institutions ofhigher education in the United States. They echo our views and closelymatch those expressed by heads of department in a study currently beingundertaken on behalf of the Higher Education Quality Council by theauthors and others into approaches to, and views of, quality enhancementin institutions of higher education in Britain.

In the United States the regional accrediting bodies are endeavouring tostrengthen standards, establish more consistent criteria and move to an

emphasis on outcomes of institutional effectiveness. In Holland and theUnited Kingdom quality assessment of academic programmes hassharpened attention upon process and outcome performance. In Australiasubstantial sums of money have been disbursed differentially as aconsequence of a broadly-based inter-institutional evaluation of quality(Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education 1994). The secondround (1994-5) focused upon teaching. New Zealand is introducingquality audit of universities (Woodhouse 1994). Corresponding processes

have been, or are being, developed in Scandinavia, some South Americancountries, parts of Canada, in Hong Kong, South Africa and in a numberof Eastern European countries.

These initiatives suggest that sensible approaches that link leadership toquality might be the touchstone for advances in institutional effectiveness.Clearly the attitudes, values and behaviour of the most senior leaders is ofcritical importance because they set the climate for institutions, but as

Jarratt (1985) diagnosed, much of the functional leadership which actuallyaffects institutional effectiveness occurs at, or below, middle managementlevels. Put in the terminology of higher education it occurs at the level ofheads of department, heads of academic and administrative services, headsof research centres, course co-ordinators and research project leaders. Notonly is that where leadership linked to quality needs to be exercised, it isalso where it needs to be nurtured, supported and developed. It would notbe appropriate in this paper to develop these points but a more extensivediscussion of leadership and management development at these levels inhigher education is provided in Middlehurst (1989); Moses and Roe(1990); Creswell et a l. (1990) and Task Force One (1994).

Earlier in this paper reference was made to the importance ofdeveloping the appropriate ‘mind-set’. Often a focusing strategykatalystassists such developments. It is instructive that a number of heads ofacademic departments in Britain have observed, at least privately, thatthey found the compilation of the self-assessment document required by

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quality assessment to be an instructive and informative experience. Therecent evaluation of quality audit in Britain (Coopers and Lybrand 1993)also indicated the developmental gains from the audit process at aninstitutional level. A number of heads have also commented publicly onthe developmental benefits which accrued from widespread participationand involvement in evaluation exercises especially when the perspectivewas widened to include discussions with other related activities that canaffect the quality of the student experience.

The reasons why individual institutions choose to invest time andenergy in these activities can range from altruism and high ideals to

market acuity and pragmatism. What seems increasingly certain is that noinstitution of higher education can disregard the imperative of beingeffective and of being capable of demonstrating that effectiveness. Inmost, probably all, systems of higher education the operational definitionof effectiveness remains multi-dimensional and generally institutionsretain a primary responsibility for deciding upon their main purposes andpriorities, although the details may then need to be negotiated with, orapproved by, the appropriate funding-body. Our argument is that by

linking quality and leadership to institutional effectiveness, universitiesmay empower themselves to maintain that set of relationships, therebyretaining a substantial measure of control over their affairs, their missions,objectives, strategic goals and of the ways of achieving these. Ultimatelyour argument fits with that recently articulated by Trow (1994) whobelieves that British universities can only defend themselves against whathe sees as the impoverishing threat of external quality assessment bycreating ‘procedures for review and maintenance of the quality of teachingand research which are firmly rooted in the intellectual life of theinstitution and its academic departments and members’ (p. 41). To putthese ideas into effect requires the ‘mind-set’, or institutional climate, thatlinks quality and leadership to create operational effectiveness based uponcriteria that are valued both by academics and by other stakeholders inhigher education.

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Higher Education Quarterly Volume 49 Issue 3 1995 [Doi 10.1111%2Fj.1468-2273.1995.Tb01680.x] Robin Middlehurst -- Leadership, Quality and Institutional Effectiveness

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