DEDICATION
4.5 CONCLUSION
5.1.4 The Rhetoric of Leadership and Management
Based on the teachers’ perspectives, the rhetoric on leadership and, to a lesser extent, management, can be grouped around issues of weak or passive leadership and active leadership. The rhetoric on weak leadership ranges from lack of support, to lack of collaboration, to lack of trust.
Three of the teachers talked about the consequences of weak leadership.
Noah: The school has a disciplinary policy and procedures. Actually, all the policies that you may think of are “nicely” filed in cabinets; but they are not being used to discipline educators in our school. It is a brother- and-sister institution where the principal has been too soft to take decisive action against educators who do not want to honour their teaching periods.
It just does not work (NT 3).
Faith: The problem of favouritism, where some teachers would do as they please and there would be no consequences, but when it’s somebody else, there would be consequences. So what happens then? Nobody listens to the
management. People do as they please and there are no consequences because there are those loopholes (FT 48).
Mercy: If the parent is a high society somebody and claims to be in a hurry to go to a parliament meeting or has to go to Pietermaritzburg; you are asked by the principal to “please leave those children, and give them anything to do; and attend to the parent immediately” (MT 22).
Noah talked about the situation where proper policies and procedures are not used to inform practice or not implemented properly. He implied that the ethos in his school is more family-like, whereby the principal is more like the father who refuses to punish his children (the teachers) when they are in the wrong. As far as Noah is concerned, this family approach to leadership and management does not work and encourages teachers to do as they want, even in an irresponsible way.
These three teachers observed how the administration indulges parents and shows leniency to teachers at the expense of the learners’ education. They also noted how there is partiality in who get pandered. For parents, it is those with particular social standing, as articulated by Mercy.
What comes through from these teachers’ utterances are the consequences of poor or weak leadership. In Noah’s articulation, there is a lack of teaching that is going on. In Faith’s articulation, there is no respect for the principal and people do as they want. In Mercy’s articulation, there is some dissatisfaction about how some parents have more rights than others, and then learners. These teachers observed weakness in leadership which allowed decisions to be made on the basis of some partial criterion. In particular, Noah suggests that sometimes leaders may need to be autocratic in order to get things done. The rhetoric indicates that when leaders are not assertive, the experience tends to be negative for teachers.
Some teachers believed that the weak form of leadership manifests in various forms and has varying effects on teachers and their work.
Faith: At times when the learner is unruly and you report to the school management and they seem to not understand the difficulty that you are going through in class when you seem unable to control your class because
of this unruly individual. They make it a joke… it crushes your spirit…and makes you feel unimportant (FT19).
For Faith who appeared challenged class management, the only recourse was to go to the school management for assistance. They, however, seemed to “make it a joke” and by implication suggested the teacher was incompetent. Faith notes that these reactions from the school management made the teacher to “feel unimportant”. What Faith is suggesting is that a teacher may undergo emotional or psychological strain resulting from the lack of support from the school leaders or managers. The rhetoric is that lack of support by the school management often has unpleasant outcomes for teachers.
Furthermore, Faith suggests that the relationship between teachers and the school management does not seem to be built on trust in her school:
Faith: You cannot question me on the mark list at the end of term when you have no interest in what I do during the course of the term… when there is no harmony between the teachers and the school management – when it’s a question of ‘us and them.’ Then it doesn’t work because we don’t gel (FT 32).
In this case, Faith is talking about a situation in her school where there seems to be some kind of antagonism between the teachers and the management as she claims that “there is no harmony” and “it’s a question of us and them.” And the ‘them’ will only seem to interact with teachers when they are checking the mark list at the end of the term. Faith does not think that this is right when there has been no support or interest throughout the term. The rhetoric here is that if the managers or leaders want to see the mark lists, then they must be able to support teachers throughout the term and provide a collegial environment for both teachers and the management.
Leadership and management is seen to have a positive role when the leaders are actively involved and are ensuring positive experiences for the teachers.
Kadesh: There have been challenges though, but I do overcome those challenges with the help of the school governing body, the principal and other SMT members (KT 7).
Noah: The principal and his deputies are placed as ‘foot soldiers’ to run around and search for these teachers who bunk classes and they end up not doing their administrative jobs” (NT16).
Having support from all structures of the school enables the teacher to get through all the obstacles. Kadesh suggests that the working together of all the structures of school governance allows the teachers to have positive experiences in their work environments.
However, Noah talks about the visibility of the leaders and managers as an attempt to ensure that teaching and learning processes run smoothly. When the leaders are seen to be active in their role, it may be experienced differently by teachers. For instance, the leaders or managers in Noah’s school, whilst they were visibly active in some of the work, by physically searching or tracking the teachers’ whereabouts, they were equally jeopardising their core administrative responsibilities. The rhetoric seems to indicate that active leadership to a large extent yields positive experiences for some teachers and that leaders and managers should lead by example and be accountable.
Leadership and management is seen to have a negative role when the people (leaders and managers) are unable to assist because they are hesitant to make unpopular decisions because they want to be loved by those whom they are leading. It can be positive when the people are vigilant and assertive in their decision-making.
Leadership can be identified as an empty signifier since it is explained differently depending on teachers’ experiences in their schools. For example, for some teachers,
‘leadership’ refers to the principal while for other teachers, it refers to the nameless person, the ‘management’.