LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES FACING SCHOOL EDUCATORS IN
Date
2011-04-18
Authors
CHAVALALA, DESMOND
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Leadership is the cornerstone of success of any organisation. Successful organisations have
strong and quality leadership, whereas unsuccessful organisations display poor leadership. Top
organisations have shown that where there is better leadership, there is better performance by
subordinates. School educators have been faced with a number of challenges since the dawn of
democracy in South Africa. Many challenges are the result of traditional practices which have
their roots in the apartheid regime. The key challenge school educators are facing is
undemocratic leadership, which makes them uncomfortable with the daily execution of their
work. The leadership challenge continues to damage the relationship between school educators
and their school managers as well as the officials from the Department of Education. The
leadership challenge at various schools creates room for finger pointing, lack of trust, suspicious
practices and lack of confidence between colleagues.
The objective of the research was to investigate the leadership challenges facing school
educators in the Manombe circuit of Mopani district in Limpopo province. The study revealed
that the leadership problem emanates from the school managers and from poor leadership
practices at the district and provincial levels of the Department, which negatively affect
performance in the schools. The study revealed that school managers make unilateral decisions,
do not motivate their subordinates to perform at their best levels and do not empower their
subordinates, and that their negative behaviour is a detrimental example to their subordinates.
The study recommends that the school managers in the Manombe circuit undergo training on
democratic leadership practices in managing school educators; school managers also need to
learn to “tame their tongues”. This training can be carried out in the form of workshops attended
by both managers and their subordinates, since good leadership can create a sense of inspiration
and hope in the followers. School managers also need to learn to recognise and reward the hard
work performed by school educators. They also need to learn to delegate duties to their school
educators for them to learn how to do work and be empowered
Description
MM - P&DM
Keywords
Leadership, Education, South Africa