I also think it's wonderful to have upper management get a close up look. I hope there's no intent to have unqualified, perhaps agenda-driven people audit though. So they should be participants (more difficult to manage) or observers (easier to manage, but harder to keep them interested).
The key is to make the audit meaningful. What will they be interested in? Probably effectiveness, especially where their own people may be stakeholders, and likely profitability. So the audit can be designed to address those things directly, using plain language and avoiding a lot of jargon and standards qualityspeak.
Readiness of inputs and people to receive them, efficiency of operations in the process, the effects problems have on profits or even that manager's own performance metrics, risks to customer retention and yes, even quality of work life are all on the table for good managers. If you try, you can turn a compliance audit into a performance audit that will help keep the management interested in the process goings-on and
doing things well (my definition of quality) and it can make you look really good too. Of course, as Randy has so rightly pointed out, all depends on the managers' attitudes.

: