Total Quality Leadership: Expert Thinking Plus Transformational Practice

Findings of a study that examined the application of total quality leadership to understand effective leadership practices are presented in this paper, which views total quality leadership as a combination of expert thinking and transformational leadership practices. Data were derived from interviews with 9 secondary school principals (4 female and 5 male) in a large, urban school system, who were identified as effective school leaders, and from a survey of 295 teachers in the 9 schools. Findings showed that one principal exemplified total quality leadership in practice. However, the capacity to exhibit transformational practices is not sufficient for total quality leadership. Two principals demonstrated premature widespread application of such practices, and two applied such practices in the service of narrow purposes. In addition, school leaders may be highly expert thinkers, but fail to act as transformationally as do their less expert colleagues. In some cases, high levels of transformational practice are not uncontestable indicators of highly expert thinking. Expert thinking appears to create a propensity to act transformationally, in the long run, but is no guarantee for the use of transformational practices. In conclusion, transformational leadership theory is not sufficient for total quality leadership because it awards too little explicit weight to the mind of the leader. Five tables are included. (Contains 56 references.) (LMI)