Ethical leadership in South African schools: learning from the experiences and practices of selected proactive school principals.
Loading...
Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
South African schools need ethical leadership, given the nature and level of unethical conduct
that is reported on in schools, with some school principals said to be the perpetrators. Despite
the sound policies that apply to the education sector, the situation still seems to persist. This
study aimed to understand selected school principals’ experiences and practices of ethical
leadership in their daily lives. These school principals were reliably believed to be ethical
leaders. The study involved exploring and understanding what informed their experiences and
practices, how they managed dilemmas and why they behaved the way they did as well as
determining what could be learnt from the participants’ experiences and practices.
This study adopted a two-pronged theoretical lens, specifically Greenleaf’s (1977) servant
leadership theory and Bill Grace’s (1999) 4Vs model of ethical leadership. The servant
leadership theory places the emphasis on the leader serving followers before leading them. The
leader does this with the aim of influencing followers to also adopt the spirit of serving others.
In the 4Vs ethical leadership model, leaders develop a vision for the organization and use their
voices to articulate the vision. This vision stems from their own understanding and conviction
of their personal values. All of this is influenced by the will to achieve the common good,
which is a virtue.
The study was qualitative, situated within the interpretivist paradigm. It used the narrative
inquiry research design. The participants were five school principals from township primary
and secondary schools in a selected circuit of the KwaZulu-Natal province.
The findings reveal that the school principals experienced ethical dilemmas that were
influenced by, among others, the prevailing socio-economic conditions, political interference,
especially from teacher unions, and lack of support from the Department of Basic Education
and other stakeholders. Their key practices included shared decision-making, leading by
example, accountability and responsibility, empathy and care. They cited having a vision and
foresight, empowering followers, serving others, humility, accountability, listening to others
and moral decision-making as what informed their practices. These practices were underpinned
by values such as integrity, honesty, justice and fairness, empathy and care as well as respect
for their practice.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.