Leadership competencies for high performance - A quality system's perspective

Organisations continuously experience change in terms of increasing customer demands. This realigns to the impact on quality, innovation, service speed and delivery, and price. In order to maintain competitive advantage in all these aspects, it has become inherent to examine leadership competencies in driving the organisation towards operational excellence. Empirical evidence shows that South Africa does not have sufficient competent leaders that have the ability to master the art of change management. The global business environment is dynamic in nature and competitiveness is vital for survival. Leadership is required to steer the organisation towards sustainable operational excellence. In addition, literature advocates management commitment in driving system implementation. Competent leaders have the ability to strategically position themselves in the implementation of a new system that affect the entire value chain. In this study, an evaluation is done to determine the leadership competencies required in the implementation of the ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS) through quantitative analysis. The paper aims to determine the leadership competencies that are essential from a South African perspective in the implementation of the ISO 9001 quality management standard. Copyright 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.