INFRASTRUCTURE POST 1994
4.6 LEADERSHIP ROLES PERFORMED BY PRINCIPALS AS IDENTIFIED BY PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS
Chapter Four: Conflicting Views On Principals As Leaders LBhagowat
their roles as managers of change since they are the chief accounting officers and have been tasked with creating and managing self reliant schools.
The responses from principals as indicated in Table 4.5 suggest that while principals perceive their roles to be leadership oriented, these perceptions are actually more management oriented. Yet again we see the impact of attending to the basic needs of the institution. Principals are so focused on fulfilling their vast array of management functions that they seem to construe these as leadership functions . . . or can we in reality separate management and leadership roles? What we detect here is the power of the organizational context - it is the context that is determining the direction that is taken by the principal. So while many of the principals have higher degrees and experience, their leadership abilities are curtailed by the needs of the institution which must be managed before it can be led. They realize that the proper structures and mechanisms have to be in place before they can lead the institution in transformation - it is a process not an event. The baseline study clearly illustrated this assertion since 37% of the principals who completed Appendix A, indicated that development of infrastructure was prioritized. This finding will be explored in greater detail at a later stage (Section7)when the focus turns to projects completed by principals.
4.6 LEADERSHIP ROLES PERFORMED BY PRINCIPALS AS IDENTIFIED
Chapter Four: Conflicting Views On Principals As Leaders L Bhagowat
Table 4. 6: Leadership roles performed by principals as perceived by principals and educators
ROLES FREQUENCY PRINCIPALS EDUCATORS
Visionaries Very often/all the time 80.3% 62.3 %
Negotiators Very often/all the time 84% 59.4%
Strategic planners Very often/all the time 83.9% 65.2%
Coaches Very often/all the time 44.4% 40.5%
Mentors Very often/all the time 74.1% 55.1%
Counsellors Very often/all the time 76.6% 59.4%
Motivators Very often/all the time 87.7% 66.7%
Team builders Very often/all the time 87.6% 56.5%
Decision makers Very often/all the time 86.4% 69.6%
Supervisors Very often/all the time 79% 69.6%
Finance officers Very often/all the time 75.3% 65.2%
Principals in the study maintain they are giving attention to the multifaceted roles that come with their job descriptions. However, the educators, who concur with the principals' perceptions that they are fulfilling these roles, claim that they are performing these roles to a lesser degree (Table 4.6). While principals' perceptions of performing these roles are predominantly above 70%, the educators' perceptions of them performing these roles are below 70%. Perhaps principals have misconceptions about their leadership roles or they are so inundated with their management functions that they truly believe they are in actual fact leading schools. It is important to consider that the manner in which teachers perceive these role functions may not always concur with the manner in which principals perceive them. These observations reinforce the disjuncture/dissonance that prevails between principals' perceptions and their actual practices of leadership.
Principals claim that they are acting as visionaries, coaches, mentors and motivators quite frequently. Inthis particular survey 86.4 % of the principals reported that they make decisions very often/all the time, suggesting that they still monopolize in which direction the institutions are transforming - perhaps it is their way of controlling the
Chapter Four: Conflicting Views On Principals As Leaders L Bhagowat
power play. The same holds for the roles of supervisor and fmance officer. The following reasons may explain why they hold on to the reigns in certain instances:
1. They have had their initial training and practice within the constraints of apartheid education. As Davidoff and Lazarus (1997) affirm, historically the authoritarianism of top-down control of all aspects of schooling remains embedded in the culture of most schools. Post 1994 initiated the move away from this culture; but remnants of this system are still in existence.
2. In spite of educational policies imparting power to the different stakeholders the principal is accountable for what transpires at the school site.
3. The principal is considered the 'gatekeeper' of change (Caldwell, 2003;
Datnow & Castellano, 2001), but she/he must at the same time maintain order and stability at the school site.
4. The principal views her/his assigned position of power as her/his tool to rule.
To understand the concept of power within the leadership framework I refer to Northouse (2001: 11)
Related to leadership is the concept of power - the potential to influence. There are two kinds of power: position and personal. Position power, which is much like assigned leadership, refers to the power an individual derives from having an office in a formal organizational system. Personal power comes from followers.Itis given to leaders because followers believe that it is something of value. Treating power as a shared resource is important because it de-emphasizes the idea that leaders are power wielders.
For years the education system advocated principals to subscribe to their assigned powers, thus they deemed themselves powerful by virtue of their positions. The Department of Education designed the policies and their officers at the school site, the principals, implemented them with no input from parents, teachers or learners. The principal's authority did not come under question since her/his power which derived from having an office in a formal organization was upheld by all stakeholders.
However, the reconceptualization of the principal's role, which resulted from the transformation initiatives in education, expect the principal to extend her/his power beyond position power to include personal power, which comes from concerted efforts to collaborate and consult with the stakeholders in education. But due to traditionally deriving their power from their designated positions, principals who
Chapter Four: Conflicting Views On Principals As Leaders L Bhagowat
participated in the survey continue to derive much of their power from their positions and are only beginning to develop a sense of personal power.
The idea of holding on to their position power has a bearing on how principals perceive their leadership roles. It can be concluded that since principals hold on to their position power, they desist from power sharing which is consistent with good leadership practice. Also, this explains why they tend to be management inclined but tend to perceive that they are leadership inclined, pointing to an assertion that there prevails a degree of disjuncture/dissonance between principals' perceptions and their actual practices of leadership.
4.7 PROJECTS DISCUSSED BY PRINCIPALS TO DEMONSTRATE THEIR