Leadership Evaluation

Effectiveness of the Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria for Leadership Evaluation
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Effectiveness of the Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria for Leadership Evaluation
The Baldrige National Quality Award leadership criteria focus on the ability of organizational leaders to facilitate and promote sustainable growth and development. In addition, it appraises business and management practices adopted by an organization. The criteria place particular emphasis on an organization’s ethical, social, and legal values as well as the management’s relationship with stakeholders. These criteria are used to recognize and award organization that promote good governance and sound business practices. This essay discusses the effectiveness of the Baldrige National Quality Awards Criteria in leadership evaluation.
In 2008, the Iredell-Statesville Schools were the winners of the Baldrige award in the education category. The winners were selected on the basis of their organizational performance and achievement vis-à-vis their adherence to legal, ethical, and social values. At the core of the Baldrige criteria, is the recognition that effective leadership is essential for organizational success. The kind of leadership that organizations adopt determines how well they achieve their short term and long term goals. Accordingly, the Baldrige criteria provide an effective framework of assessing the positive influence of an organization’s leadership (Roussel, Swansburg & Swansburg, 2006). Significant consideration is focused on an organization’s senior leadership because it forms the managerial driving force responsible for mobilizing resources and enforcing the organization’s core values. Additionally, it is the senior leadership that directs the organization’s collective human resources towards the realization of organizational goals, vision, and mission. At the same time, leaders facilitate and promote team work among staff members. They formulate the policies that guide institutional practices as well as establish the desired organizational culture, whilst ensuring a work ethic that conforms to established legal frameworks.
The Baldrige criterion reflects the core values that promote organizational success, hence provides an effective framework for leadership evaluation. Of significant relevance is the emphasis on an organization’s vision, which not only forms the foundational basis from which all other organizational values derive, but also projects the organization’s long term and future goals. A strong vision is the platform of organizational success, without which failure is inevitable (Glasman, 1986). In this light, the Baldrige criteria can be successfully applied to a two-year since it takes into account an organization’s vision and long term goals. Indeed, an organization’s values are a permanent fixture in organizational practices because they determine and influence leadership strategies. Additionally, ethical values reflect an organization’s enduring relationship with stakeholders and adherence to established standards (Stockman, 2008). The implication of this approach is that effective leadership is not limited to the achievement of short term goals, but in addition, the promotion of values that guarantee future success.
Consequently, the Baldrige criteria also evaluate leaders on the basis of their ability to create sustainable organizations. One of the parameters employed in this regard is the ability to create an environment that supports performance improvement. In particular, leaders are assessed on their commitment to promote innovation and organizational dynamism. This parameter also included leaders’ ability to direct organizational efforts toward the realization of the organization’s strategic objectives. Similarly, the evaluation also sought to determine the efforts of the leaders in propelling the organization towards achieving the mission of the organization. With respect to the Iredell-Statesville Schools, the award recognized the management’s commitment in promoting quality education. The management achieved this by providing an appropriate environment in which teachers and learners interact effectively. This management strategy also reflects the role of leadership in creating an effective environment for daily learning, hence guaranteeing the schools’ future success- sustainable growth (Antonakis, Cianciolo & Sternberg, 2004). The Baldrige criteria provide an effective set of parameters for assessing leadership qualities because it recognizes the relevance of leadership in providing the tools necessary for academic excellence
Another focus of the Baldrige award is organizational sustainability in terms of the leadership’s ability to create a workforce culture that promotes consistent engagement with customers and evaluation of their experiences (e.g. satisfaction) with the organization’s services and products. In the case of the Iredell-Statesville Schools, interaction various stakeholders like students, teachers, and parents provided a platform through which each party’s needs were identified and addressed. As a result, leaders are expected to establish and understand the mechanisms through which involved stakeholders interact with each other. This is a necessary leadership quality that reflects the degree to which leaders are determined to create a sustainable organization. A sustainable organization can only be created if there is an effective mechanism through which stakeholder interests are addressed (Reeves, 2004).
The Baldrige evaluation also focused on determining how the organization’s leadership facilitated learning within its workforce. All sustainable organizations facilitate workforce learning as part of employee development programs. Therefore, this parameter also looked at whether organizations embraced learning and exchange programs for its employees. This could be used to predict the 2009-2011 performance in the organization since learning programs contribute significantly to future individual and collective employee productivity (Hernez-Broome & Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2011). Besides enhancing employee skills, leaders are also evaluated on how they participate in training programs to develop their leadership s...