By Patrick McGroarty 

PRETORIA---Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said Friday that central banks should start turning away from the extraordinary measures taken to spur growth in recent years and return to the narrower focus of controlling inflation.

"It really is just about providing a strong nominal anchor and strong macroeconomic performance and lowering expectations about what's feasible and what's appropriate for monetary policy to do," Mr. Williams told attendees of a conference held by the South African Reserve Bank.

In the wake of this week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, he also said efforts like the extraordinary bond-buying program the Fed said it would soon end shouldn't be repeated soon.

"I view the quantitative easing asset purchase programs to be purely an effect of the economic situation we've been in and not as a normal part of monetary policy in the future," Mr. Williams said.

And while he said the global financial crisis has obliged central banks to be more transparent about their operations, he indicated that the Fed might not always be so explicit about its long-term policy plans. Mr. Williams has said previously that he believes the Fed should raise rates sometime in mid-2015.

"Once we're back to normal policy, we don't need to have explicitly forward guidance," Mr. Williams said. "We have to act in a consistent, systematic way--not alone with our words, but with our actions."

In his prepared remarks, Mr. Williams said central banks' largely successful pursuit of low inflation could mean they more frequently run into periods where monetary policy hits levels of interest rates that can be cut no further. Mr. Williams said flirting with this level of monetary policy could come hand-in-hand with success in keeping inflation low.

Michael S. Derby contributed to this article.

Write to Patrick McGroarty at patrick.mcgroarty@wsj.com<mailto:patrick.mcgroarty@wsj.com>.