Influence of school principals' leadership styles on the effectiveness of low-income Cape Town schools

Abstract

The poor matriculation results of the past number of years, as well the changing role of principals as school leaders, raise concerns for the future of education in South Africa. One of the contributory factors is that principals who were trained under the apartheid school system often lack the skills and knowledge to lead democratically or strategically. This has major implications for the effectiveness of schools. Most of the literature on this topic in South Africa associates school effectiveness with learners’ academic performance and improvement of teaching and learning. Whilst ample research exists on the instructional roles of principals in South Africa and elsewhere, the nature of what exactly makes some leaders and organisations successful and others unsuccessful is uncertain. There is a shortage of evidence about what precisely constitutes effective leadership, particularly in the area of disadvantaged schooling. If there is a particular style of leadership which could help to make schools more effective in such communities, it was the purpose of, and justification for, this study: to identify it, or its application, in such schools. Research for this study was located in a qualitative paradigm. It sought to achieve an in-depth and holistic understanding of interaction among principals’ leadership styles and other factors contributing to school effectiveness. Four schools were selected on the basis of their historically disadvantaged background. Data was collected from four male principals and four HODs (three males and one female) from four impoverished schools in Mitchell’s Plain and Steenberg on the Cape Flats area in the City of Cape Town. Methods of data collection included audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews and document analysis.Results reveal that while leadership styles may contribute immensely to school effectiveness, other factors, such as principals’ personalities and attributes, may contribute to this situation. The authors recommended that leadership and management training should be a pre-requisite qualification for entrylevel as a school principal. Furthermore, it should be required of school principals to have a clear understanding of what different leadership styles entail and which leadership style would be most appropriate for a particular situation.