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CONCEPTUALISING LEADERSHIP
The 21st century has heralded in an enormous focus on educational leadership. The reason for this may be attributed to the perception that learner and school outputs are directly proportional to the quality of school leadership. Internationally, and in South Africa, there is a belief that in order to secure high-quality education, schools need effective leaders (Bush, 2008a:1).
Educational leadership is a complex construct that requires perseverance and astuteness to respond to typical school demands (Steyn & Kamper, 2001:36). In the context of globalisation, organisations are realising that their greatest assets are their human potential. In a school scenario, this translates to having competent teachers, led and managed by competent and effective leaders (Bush, 2007:391).
Bush (2007:393) further asserts that whilst there is much debate on leadership and management, there is gross uncertainty about the leadership behaviours or practices that lead to desired learner outputs. It is therefore crucial for leaders to establish an understanding of the various leadership practices to respond appropriately to the various challenging situations in which they may find themselves on a daily basis. It is precisely in this domain that the researcher has endeavoured to explore.
There are numerous conceptualisations of leadership and Yukl (2005:4-5) argues that the definition of leadership is varied and subjective. He argues that the majority of definitions of leadership identify an influence process whereby influence is exerted intentionally by one person over other people to coordinate relationships and execute actions in organisations. He further argues that leadership entails reaching consensus on what needs to be done and determining how it can be executed effectively to attain common goals. Leithwood et al. (2006:11) believe that leadership is concerned with the improvement of the organisation and more specifically the establishment of commonly understood directions and acting to move individuals in the desired directions. Hence leadership concerns itself with direction and influence. They further assert that the focus of management is stability, whilst leadership concerns itself with improvement and acknowledges that both leadership and management are vitally important. They also maintain that stability and improvement, which are synonymous with change, have a synergistic relationship.
DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Educational leadership and management may be considered as constructs concerned with the functionality of schools and other educational institutions. They are distinct features.
Contemplating these related phenomena, Bush (2007:391) reflects on Cuban’s (1988) distinction and declares that leadership is linked with change, whilst maintenance activity is associated with management. The fundamental focus of leadership is influencing and shaping “the goals, motivations, and actions of others” and requires “much ingenuity, energy and skill”. Effective management on the other hand – whilst embracing leadership skills – has as its primary function “maintenance rather than change” (Cuban, 1988 in Bush, 2007:391-392).
Both leadership and management are deemed important.
Bolam (1999:194) defines management as an executive function for implementing agreed policy, while educational leadership is concerned with policy formulation and organisational transformation. Day, Harris and Hadfield (2001:45) consider leadership to be focused on the development of people, whilst management is linked to systems and paper. The implication is that once direction, strategies and organisational capacity have been determined as a product of leadership, processes need to be executed, coordinated and controlled according to schedule to ensure that agreed upon objectives are honoured. This often materialises in the format of management plans which clearly define work breakdown structures, responsibilities and time frames. The South African Task Team report (DoE, 1996:27) supports the management component in that it provides a clear framework to support teaching and learning. Hence there exists a subtle difference between leadership and management and their co-existence is accentuated in their synergy of optimising learning outputs.
In an era pervaded by educational transformation, there is undoubtedly an evolution of the school principal’s primary function from one of managing to one of leading (Blase & Blase, 2004:54). This view is corroborated by Mestry and Singh (2007:477) when they aver that principals are expected to exude with energy, drive and values, and they function in the capacity of educational leaders rather than as managers. It is, however, important to recognise that sound management continues to be a critical ingredient of effective leadership.
The school leadership literature unearths a plethora of alternative and competing models.
According to Bush (2007:394) the various conceptions of leadership may be clustered into broad themes or ‘types’. He further cites Leithwood, Jantzi and Steinbach (1999), who from their research identified six leadership ‘models’. This typology is further extended into eight models as indicated in the table below (Bush, 2007:394).
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF STUDY
1.1 ALARM BELLS…!
1.2 BACKGROUND AND ORIENTATION
1.3 THE PROBLEM
1.4 RATIONALE
1.5 RESEARCH AIM
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTION
1.7 ELUCIDATION OF CONCEPTS
1.8 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
1.9 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
1.10 LIMITATIONS
1.11 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
1.12 ORGANISATION OF THE THESIS
1.13 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 2: LEADERSHIP IN SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS: A THEORETICAL EXPOSITION AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 CONCEPTUALISING LEADERSHIP
2.3 DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
2.4 THE LEADERSHIP OF LEARNING
2.5 ACCOUNTABILITY AND STANDARDS
2.6 SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
2.7 SELECTED LEADERSHIP MODELS IDIOSYNCRATIC TO SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS
2.8 SCHOOL CULTURE
CHAPTER 3: THE PRACTICE OF LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION – LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 GENESIS OF CORE CATEGORIES OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICE
3.3 A REVELATION OF THE CORE LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
3.4 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 RESEARCH DESIGN
4.3 RESEARCH METHOD
4.4 DATA ANALYSIS
4.5 ISSUES OF VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
4.6 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
4.7 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS ON SCHOOL PRINCIPALS’ LEADERSHIP PRACTICES – DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 SCHOOL PROFILE
5.3 CODING OF PARTICIPANTS
5.4 FINDINGS: RESEARCH SUB-QUESTION 1
5.5 FINDINGS: RESEARCH SUB-QUESTION 2
5.6 FINDINGS: RESEARCH SUB-QUESTION 3
5.7 SYNTHESIS OF THE FINDINGS
5.8 DISCUSSION
5.9 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 6: OVERVIEW, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
6.1 INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE
6.2 OVERVIEW
6.3 RESPONDING TO THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
6.4 RECOMMENDATIONS
6.5 SIGNIFICANCE AND CONTRIBUTION OF STUDY
6.6 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE STUDIES
6.7 CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
