As far as I can say, the success of a quality management system depends on the management. It is no secret. But how one can evaluate whether the management truly devoted to the QMS or just acts like it once a year when the external auditor pays a visit...  Then all the special suits come out, everybody is smiling and telling how the QMS is important and blah blah blah…

The Management responsibility, lays out the requirements of the top management regarding the quality management system. The management is required to prove and provide evidences for its commitment for implementing a quality management system and to continually improve the effectiveness of the quality management system.  
The management shall achieve the requirement while referring to the next issues:

• Determine the method to inform the organization of the importance of meeting customers' requirements.
• Determine the appropriate quality policy.
• Determine quality objectives, measurable and appropriate to the organization. Conduct and participate in management's reviews over the quality management system
• Ensure the required resources for the quality management system and the product realization.

Chapter 5.1 is a general chapter. In this chapter are presented the general requirements for the top management regarding the quality management system. The specific requirements appear throughout the following chapters 5.2-5.6.

This chapter shall be regarded as a base for self evaluation whether the top management role within the quality management system follows the general requirements. 

Here, the management is required to demonstrate, with actions, how it assures that the quality management system would be implemented.  The ISO 9001 Standard requires to continually improving the quality management system.  It is emphasized that the top management is not only responsible for developing the quality management system but to realize, implement it and maintain its effectiveness. The top management is responsible to present the evidences for performing the responsibilities.
The management is responsible for:

• Defining a quality policy  
• Determining measurable objective that will maintain the quality management effectiveness. In other words, the top management is required determining objectives, that by fulfilling them, the quality management system would achieve improvement on a systematic basis. The ISO 9001 Standard requires improving the quality management system.
• The top management is required to decide about the quality objectives and to ensure that these objectives would be achieved. How? Determine objective that are relevant to the quality policy. After determining the objectives, the top management must collect and analyze data regarding these objectives and to evaluate whether the improvement was achieved or not.
• Define a communication channel between the top management and the employees. The purpose here is to ensure that the management has defined means to deliver and implement the importance of meeting customers' requirements and regulatory requirements among the employees.
• Conducting management review to evaluate the effectiveness of the quality management system. I would deal with the management review in more details later on.
• The top management shall ensure allocation of all required resources in order to ensure an effective quality management system.