Coming full circle Essay

You could almost say that Leadership, the US Army, the Quality Circle (Editors, 2007), and the Baldrige Criteria (Commerce, 2006) have a shared history: Having established above the importance of leadership in all aspects of life in that it is found in the military as well as in the civilian: business even in the spiritual (servant-leadership) or religious—it was the US Army which took the lead in the formation of â€Å"quality circles† during the Second World War in the 1940s to ensure that the US produce large quantities of war materiel of best quality (Anonymous, 2002). It even took a US Professor, W.Edwards Deming (Editors, 2007), of Western culture, to teach the Japanese, of Eastern culture, to this concept of â€Å"quality circles† (Anonymous, 2002; Editors, 2007; Jarvis, 2006; Swinton, 2007), catapulting Japan slowly but surely to Asian world power status and endearing Prof. Deming to the Japanese who honored him with a prestigious award after his name, the Deming Award. Faced with slack economic progress in the 1970s, the US government set up the Baldrige Criteria/Awards to catch up and to try to lead again in the world’s industries (Commerce, 2001, , 2005, , 2006, , 2007a, , 2007b, , 2007c). In effect, it cannot be avoided if the Baldrige Awards is compared with the Deming Award in Japan. All things besides, the Baldrige Criteria attempts to accurately measure those seven (7) identified aspects (more about later) which contribute to organizational success. Even this year 2007 (Commerce, 2007b), many modifications have been in place in the Baldrige Criteria to keep up with new challenges met, showing how dynamic the Baldrige Method is. It now took the Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve ESGR (E. S. G. R., 2007), a US Department of Defense agency working for the US Armed Forces to take the lead in possibly showing other applications of readily available Baldrige Criteria raw scores. Statement of the Thesis Problem Attempting to prove that when Leadership Scores Category are high as measured by the Baldrige Criteria, then the other six (6) Category areas measure high as well, such as Strategic Planning; Customer and Market Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Measurement; Human Resource Focus; Process Management; and Business Results and to show a correlation as such. Hypotheses Hypotheses to be tested: 1. Leadership scores category are significantly correlated with the scores of the other six category areas. 2. Significant multiple regression equation exists between leadership scores (Y, dependent variable) and the scores of the six category areas (X, independent variables). Objectives of the Thesis 1. To determine the difference between Leaders (or Senior Leaders) and Others (or Junior Leaders) using performance excellence criteria of the Baldrige framework. 2. To determine which of the different concerns contribute to leadership. Materials and Methods The Survey Data Provider The set of raw data used as the primary research of this paper provided the basis for the Report (Peacock, 2006) submitted by Gartman and Associates, a Baldrige-accredited contractor duly authorized to conduct the Baldrige survey using the 2006 Baldrige Criteria as the framework. This criterion is the de facto criteria of performance excellence used globally by manufacturing, service, small business, health care, education, and nonprofit/government for improving organizational performance. The criteria has seven focus areas: Leadership; Strategic Planning; Customer and Market Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management; Human Resources Focus; Process Management; and Business Results. The Survey Date and the Target Institution. During the week of 4 through 8 December 2006, Gartman and Associates performed a high-level, initial â€Å"quick look† assessment of the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, ESGR (E. S. G. R. , 2007). Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) is a Department of Defense (DoD) organization of the United States of America (USA). It is a staff group within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs (OASD/RA), which is in itself a part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The nation’s Reserve components, referring to the total of all National Guard members and Reserve forces from all branches of the military, (Laurent, 2006) comprise approximately 46 percent of the total available military manpower of the USA’s Armed Forces . The current National Defense Strategy indicates that the National Guard and Reserve will be full partners in the fully integrated Total Force. The USA Reserve Forces will spend more time away from the workplace defending the nation, supporting a demanding operations tempo and training, take note, to maintain their mission readiness. In this environment, civilian employers play a critical role in the defense of the nation by complying with existing employment laws protecting the rights of workers who serve in the Reserve component. ESGR was established in 1972 to promote cooperation and understanding between Reserve component members and their civilian employers and to assist in the resolution of conflicts arising from an employee’s military commitment. ESGR is the lead DoD organization for this mission under DoD Directive 1250. 1.