Exploring school principals’ lived leadership experiences of creating high performing schools in a South African township

Abstract

This study explores the involvement of modern-day principals who engage in innovative intervention processes to promote excellence in their schools thus sustaining high-quality learner-performance. This arises out of concern that the DoE Diagnostic Report (2017) depicts a depressing picture concerning learner-performances in South African secondary schools that fail to meet the international benchmark. However, there are those schools that are “high-performing.” Given that there exists a correlation between leadership practices and learner-performances, principals of secondary schools who are held accountable for learner-performances, are now proactive such that they institute strategies to uplift learners’ academic results. The qualitative study’s aim is to explore the practices of “lived leadership” by principals of high-performing secondary schools in an effort to contribute to education that will yield good quality results in South African secondary schools. The research project adopted the theory of transformational leadership which was used as a lens to review the relevant literature and critically analyse generated data. In this study, the researcher adopted an interpretive paradigm. Relevant data from each school principal of four (4) high-performing schools in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District (North-West Province) through the responses and transcripts of from individual-semi-structured interviews focusing on their matriculation results of 2017 and 2018. This led to the acquisition of in-depth knowledge and a better understanding of how high- performing secondary school principals utilise their “lived leadership” experiences in order to generate, promote and maintain their highly productive instructional environments. The multi-case study revealed that in their schools where innovativeness in leadership was in operation, school principals focused on the twinning of schools, and supporting and motivating both educators and learners in reaching a shared vision, in addition to engaging in strong collaboration with school community members. Thus, school principals established mutual relationships on the basis of trust, common decision-making, and freedom of communication – all of which can be implemented at other schools. It is recommended that extensive studies (covering all schools in the North-West Province) be conducted to help and keep us informed about the phenomenon. It was suggested that secondary school principals should also support and promote studies in functional leadership which entails their involvement in more-advanced vocational training sessions, workshops, conferences, and seminars. The intensification of such training should be done in a modern transformational leadership style which solves serious challenges such as school discipline. Additionally, school principals should collaborate to discuss and minimise challenges at schools. Lastly, it was recommended that educators be recognised, praised, and rewarded by principals for their sacrifices to sustain schools’ high-performance rates.