ABSTRACT
A key focus of this chapter is an exploration of the role of leadership in establishing an organizational culture conducive to increased quality and organizational improvement which is reflected by enhanced learner outcomes. Leaders need to know the influences of the existing cultural conditions, the kind of culture they wish to establish and how the existing culture needs to be modified to achieve these aims. Such insights may not be easily accessible or lend themselves to easy definition in some organizations and in the skill set of some leaders. Leaders attempting to modify culture need to have a critical awareness of how quality enhancement can be supported culturally, as well as structurally, if improvement efforts are to flourish and be sustained. If improving quality is equated to doing what you do better, so that learners’ and other stakeholders’ needs are served to a higher standard, then leading and managing quality points to the fundamental requirement of building quality enhancement systems from the ground up. This is a challenging task and implies that leadership action can foster a culture of quality by forging shared organizational values and priorities. Such action is likely to involve securing a shared focus on improvement, systematic information gathering, consultation, individual and institutional learning, shared decision-making, collaboration, teacher professionalism and trust so that improved practices and processes can lead to improved outcome, reflecting high standards within the educational market place. In this chapter we seek to define the term culture and to explore links between leadership and the development of a culture of quality. In so doing we explore:
• culture, quality and ethos; • leadership, learning communities and cultural change; • leadership, developing a culture of quality and school improvement; • leadership, developing a culture of quality and improvement in the further and
higher education sectors.
