servant leadership jss 2012

© 0000 J Soc Sci, 0000: 000 (0000)

JSS-1321

A Narrative Inquiry into the Leadership Practice in a SouthAfrican School through a Servant-Leadership Lens

G. M. Steyn

Department of Further Teacher Education, College of Education,University of South Africa, P O Box 392, Pretoria 0003 South Africa

Telephone : +27 12 664 4256, Mobile: +27 82 886 7468E-mail: [email protected]

KEY WORDS School Leadership. Laub’s Model of Servant-leadership. Principalship

ABSTRACT Apart from international narrative studies on school principals the use of a narrative has only beenapplied in a limited manner to studies focusing on school principals in South Africa. The purpose of this article wastherefore to explore the way in which the principal in the study exhibited the aspects of the servant- leadershipmodel through a narrative analysis. The narrative of a South African principal was interpreted in the light of thesix characteristics of Laub’s servant-leadership organisational model. The following categories emerged from thedata analysis: Valuing people: “I have been extra blessed with a great love for people”; Developing people: Focuson the ‘strong points’ and not the ‘weak points’; Building community: Start trusting and using people… it’s ageneral principle”; Displaying authenticity: “Compassion … it’s a very small thing, perhaps even insignificant”;Providing leadership: “We are missing something about the child”; and Sharing leadership: “The secret of anybusiness … is ownership.” This study shows the intricate relationship between the contextual factors in a particularschool and the execution of school leadership, in particular servant-leadership.

INTRODUCTION

Worldwide social and economic changes aremodifying the context of leadership in schools(Day and Leithwood 2007: vii). This explains theglobal increase in the interest in studying schoolleadership during the last two decades (Gurr etal. 2006: 372; Slater et al.2008: 702). These stud-ies show extensive evidence regarding the im-portance of school leadership in creating effec-tive schools (Macneil et al. 2009: 76; Krüger etal. 2007: 1; Drysdale et al. 2009: 697).

Research also indicates that leadership,which includes school leadership, is viewed asone of the most complex of social processes (Fryand Krieger 2009: 1667; Leithwood and Day 2007:1). This complexity may explain the existence ofthe many leadership theories (Werner 2003: 186),such as trait theories (Barker 2001; Robbins andDecenzo 2007), transformational leadership(Robbins and Decenzo 2007; Nel et al. 2008),situational leadership (Hersey et al. 2008) andservant leadership (Trompenaars and Voerman2010; Tidball 2012).

Leadership is considered to be the ability ofleaders to demonstrate how they influence oth-ers to act in a certain way (Robbins and Decenzo2007: 247; Nel et al. 2008: 356; Hersey et al. 2008:6; Werner 2003: 186). A school principal is re-garded as the key educational leader and the

one particular person in a school who is in thebest position to exercise school leadership (Gurret al. 2006: 371). By means of his or her direction,encouragement, support, sensitivity and con-sideration, a principal encourages and influencesfollowers to achieve the set goals (cf. Robbinsand Decenzo 2007: 247; Nel et al. 2008: 356).

As in the case of Johnson’s study (2009),this study is yet another response to the studydone by Møller and Eggen (2005: 335) to viewleadership “practice” as a narrative which “mayopen up approaches to analysis which wouldbe useful in exploring the complexities of leader-ship practice in schools”. Apart from interna-tional narrative studies on school principals(Brumley 2007; Cooper and Heck 1995; Greer2009; Johnson 2009; Slater 2011), the use of anarrative, which has informed this study, hasonly been applied in a limited manner to studiesfocusing on school principals in South Africa.South African principals’ narratives include thestudy on educational changes in a sample of thebest Eastern Cape schools (Lawrence 2007),grounded narratives of school principals duringa decade of changes (Mphahlele 2009); describ-ing the use of metaphors in respect of schoolleadership among three women school princi-pals (Phendla 2004), and constructing the selfas a leader who contributes to an effective Afri-can-centred leadership style (Mogadime et al.

2 G. M. STEYN

2010). However, none of the studies provide anarrative on how a leadership practice comparesto the servant-leadership model. The purposeof this article is therefore to determine how thenarrative of a South African principal can be in-terpreted in the light of the six characteristics ofLaub’s servant-leadership organisational model.

Objective of the Study

Building on the work of Spillane’study (2005)that focuses on all the interactions of schoolleaders, their followers and the school contextand Schall et al.’s study (2004:1) that providesan an appreciative focus on the ‘work of leader-ship’, the resaercher examined the life story ofthe leadership practice of a South African prin-cipal as it relates to servant leadership. Thestudy therefore attempted to determine how theleadership of a South African principal can beinterpreted in the light of Laub’s servant-leader-ship model that focuses on the following as-pects: (a) valuing people, (b) developing people,(c) building community, (d) displaying authen-ticity, (e) providing leadership, and (f) sharingleadership.

Conceptual Framework

Although considerable conceptual progresshas been made on school leadership, more re-search is required to address the question of thepaths through which a school principal achievesschool effectiveness (Krüger et al. 2007: 1). Theresearcher joined other leadership theorists whobelieve that leadership is a socially constructedphenomenon (Ladkin 2010: 21; Schall et al. 2004:2) which is constructed over time as individualsinteract with each other. Having a construction-ist approach to leadership, one finds it possibleto reveal the relational and sense-making aspectsof a principal’s leadership work (Schall et al. 2004:3). Moreover, the narrative which is used in thisstudy is socially constructed through a numberof interviews and interactions between the par-ticipant and the researcher (Hollingsworth andDybdahl 2007: 151).

The other lens that is used in this study isthat of servant leadership. The servant-leader-ship model resembles that of transformationalleadership, but differs in the sense that servantleaders see themselves as servants first, and lead-ers second (Greenleaf 1998: 15; Van Tassell 2006:

15). Robert Greenleaf, who questioned tradi-tional, authoritarian leadership styles, createdthe concept “servant leadership” (Greenleaf1998: 15). Servant leadership is a holistic ap-proach to leadership and requires a rethinkingof the hierarchy between leaders and employ-ees (Spears 2004: 7-8). To Greenleaf (1998: 18),“the servant-leader is servant first” (Greenleaf1998: 18). In line with the above mentioned view,Laub (2004: 3) defines servant leadership as “anunderstanding and practice of leadership thatplaces the good of those led over the self-inter-est of the leader” (Laub 2004: 23). Servant lead-ership is strongly based in both caring and ethi-cal behaviour, emphasises increased service toothers, promotes the valuing and growth ofpeople, and shares power in decision making(Greenleaf 1998: 19; Spears 2004: 7-8; Ross 2006:64; Tidball 2012: 36;Van Tassell 2006: 16).

Although Laub’s servant-leadership modelis not the only servant-leadership model avail-able (Wong and 003; Van Tassell 2006;Patterson 2003), it provides “a clear frameworkfor the underlying meaning and characteristicsof servant-leadership” (Brumley 2007: 29) and isregarded as a standard for a servant-leadershipmodel (Ross 2006; Van Tassell 2006). Brumley’sstudy (2007: 30) in particular shows that Laub’sinstrument successfully determined the degreeto which an organisation is servant led (Ross2006: 105; Van Tassell 2006: 63). Laub’s Organi-zational Leadership Assessment model (OLA)(1999: 23) reveals the following characteristicsof servant leadership: (a) valuing people, (b)developing people, (c) building community, (d)displaying authenticity, (e) providing leadership,and (f) sharing leadership. This study explored“servant leadership as a practice of an individualprincipal” (Hagstrom 2004: 89) and, in particular,examined the way in which the principal exhib-ited the aspects of the servant leadership modelthrough a narrative analysis.

Research Design

The researcher became acquainted with theprimary school in the study via a shadowingexercise of the principal when he was carefullyobserved for a few months in 1992. The schooland principal had also participated in a numberof other studies which did not particularly focuson the leadership practice of the principal, butprovided valuable insights into his leadership

USING A SERVANT-LEADERSHIP LENS TO STUDY A PRINCIPAL’S LEADERSHIP 3

practice (Steyn 1994,2006, 2007, 2009, 2010).During his years of principalship which was re-vealed in the mentioned studies, this school dis-played the following characteristics: purposiveand flexible leadership; teachers’ and students’commitment to work; a safe and organisationallyfunctioning school context (cf. Danielson 2007:18; Jacobson et al. 2005: 614); a culture of careand concern in the school (cf. Jacobson et al.2005: 613; Saðnak 2010: 1145); and a functioningrelationship with the parents and community.Apart from new empirical data in this study, theschool’s DVD and data from previous studies inthe school – as mentioned earlier – were in-cluded.

The primary school in the study performedexceptionally well in various aspects of theschool. The school’s achievements included thefollowing (Steyn 2012): They previously wongarden competitions in Pretoria; the curriculumwas supplemented by subjects students needed,such as Study methods, Remedial teaching andEnglish as a spoken language; the school em-ployed an extensive system to reward staff, stu-dents, parents and ‘friends of the school’; andthe school had least 20 different parent commit-tees.

In this study the researcher used the meth-odology of narrative inquiry (Bell 2002: 207;Creswell 2007: 93; Denzin and Lincoln 2008: 65;Greer 2009: 269; Oplatka 2004: 57; Riesmann 2011:203; Slater et al. 2008: 705), particularly that of anarrative analysis (Given 2008: 539) to inquireinto a principal’s stories of his leadership prac-tice. Such an inquiry presents experiences of aparticipant holistically “in all its complexity andrichness” (Bell 2002: 209) and encompassed “ex-tended accounts” that developed over multiplecontacts (Given 2008: 539) with the principal.

The principal’s story was revealed throughan open-ended interview (and follow-up tele-phone conversations) and field notes in 2010which exposed the personal perspective of theprincipal on his leadership practice during hisyears of principalship. The responses of the prin-cipal were considered as ‘stories’ and the writ-ten text in the findings as the ‘narrative’ (Brumley2007: 45; Riesmann 2011: 204). To ensure trust-worthiness, the data collected were recorded andtranscribed and a transcript of the data was sentvia e-mail to the participant for member check-ing to ensure accuracy and reliability (Kelly andSaunders 2010: 128; Muijs et al. 2010: 145).

Furthermore, the trustworthiness of the studywas examined by comparing and contrasting theevidence gleaned from the interview with previ-ous studies within the school (Muijs et al. 2010:145). Since the data collected were in Afrikaansthey were translated into English, consideringthe idiom in which the stories were told.

As in the case of Johnson’s study (2009: 270)the researcher employed an empirically-grounded narrative to show how a principal por-trayed his servant leadership in the telling of hisstories. The researcher first approached the textholistically and, by means of re-telling, the re-searcher reconstructed and integrated sectionsof the text (Creswell 2007: 158) into the six char-acteristics of Laub’s OLA servant-leadershipmodel. Since Laub’s model enabled the re-searcher to identify critical elements in theprincipal’s story, a thematic form of narrativeanalysis was used to ‘assemble’ the events andstories (Given 2008, 540) and build a framework(Riesmann 2011: 206) according to the servant-leadership model to reveal the unique features(Creswell 2007: 158) of the principal’s servant-leadership practice. The researcher coded theparticipant’s narrative from a literary perspec-tive to understand the “storied, structured” formof the data (Saldaòa 2009: 109), which involved“big gulps of text” (Daiute and Lightfoot 2004:2). In the categorisation of data, both structural(Saldaòa 2009: 68) – in this case Laub’s OLAmodel – and in vivo coding (Creswell 2007: 153)were used to identify the categories. The reasonfor using in vivo coding was to “prioritize andhonour the participant’s voice” in the study(Saldaòa 2009: 74), while the conceptual frame-work of servant leadership provided an appro-priate way of structuring the data collected.

Findings of the Study

The following categories emerged: Valuingpeople: “I have been extra blessed with a greatlove for people”; Developing people: Focus onthe ‘strong points’ and not the ‘weak points’;Building community: Start trusting and usingpeople… it’s a general principle”; Displayingauthenticity: “Compassion … it’s a very smallthing, perhaps even insignificant”; Providingleadership: “We are missing something aboutthe child”; and Sharing leadership: “The se-cret of any business … is ownership.” On an-other level, the narrative was interpreted by

4 G. M. STEYN

means of the servant leadership model to depictthe manifestation of the principal’s servant-lead-ership practice.

The school was located in an average toabove-average socio-economic environment,although some parents were struggling finan-cially. Throughout his career as principal of theschool, he regarded his leadership as a “calling”and that he wanted to make a difference in thelives of others in the school and the community.During his career as principal his leadership styledid not change much and he remained focusedon the welfare of others. He was inviting andopen – a “hands-on” leader as supported by anAustralian study (Drysdale et al. 2009: 703).

Valuing People: “I have been extra blessedwith a great love for people”

Servant leaders demonstrate valuing peopleby believing in them, serving people’s needsthrough non-judgmental and receptive listen-ing (Laub 1999: 25). The study revealed that anarray of strong personal and professional val-ues and beliefs underpinned the leadership prac-tice of the principal.

It was notably the principal’s care, love andrespect for people that were paramount in hisleadership practice. In the study by Steyn (1994),the principal demonstrated his caring attitudeby being visible in classrooms and on the schoolgrounds. In his story he said, “You can’t just sitin your office ...you must be among people”,and he made an extra effort to learn the name ofevery child in the school. His love for peoplewas a recurring theme in all his interviews andagain confirmed in the 2010 interview: “I think Ihave been extra blessed with a great love forpeople – especially for children.”

The way in which the principal valued peopleis disclosed in the following assertion: “Mypremise – my thing is with people … I’m verypeople oriented ... I’m telling you, I love people.”They way in which love could be demonstratedwas revealed in his explanation: “Doing some-thing unexpected for someone who doesn’t ex-pect anything, and who can’t give it back … …It gives me pleasure to do small things for people…I received the right calling.”

The religious beliefs and values of this prin-cipal were very strong and obviously had a greatinfluence on his leadership practice (Raihani2008: 486; Karadað 2009: 1393). When the prin-

cipal attended a conference on “Youth with aMission for Christ” a number of years ago, hewas invited to make a prayer request. His re-quest was that the audience should pray that hecould love children even more. He believes that,after this event, his sense of love increased.

To illustrate the impact of his love, the prin-cipal referred to a “nice” letter from gentlemanwho had been a learner more or less 20 yearsago.

When he was at the school, I walked pasthim and just touched his head... and that smallgesture, made him start observing me … he saidI won’t believe what a huge impact I had on hislife... It’s an insignificant little deed of love andof caring.

His love for children was confirmed by anexperienced teacher (Steyn 2006: 6) who men-tioned that it was primarily the principal’s lovefor the learners that was so remarkable: “It is theLord who gives him that love. And I think that isactually the essence ... and I think that is per-haps what you don’t get at some of the otherschools. They don’t have that love.” It was notonly that his own values that were important tohim; he also wished to inculcate important valuesystems such as love, respect and humility inothers. He believed that an appropriate valuesystem could prepare children for a successfulplace in society.

Apart from valuing people, servant leadersacknowledge the talents that people have andvalue their development and growth.

Developing People: Focus on the ‘strong points’and not the ‘weak points’

Servant leaders develop people by provid-ing opportunities for professional development(PD), modelling appropriate behaviour and build-ing others through affirmation and encourage-ment (Laub 1999: 25). The principal placed agreat emphasis on staff’s PD and acknowledgedtheir ‘unique’ talents. In various studies, theprincipal referred to the importance of teachers’growth (Steyn 2007 , 2009 , 2010). In the 2010interview, he strongly confirmed his belief: “Ithink the other shortcoming in schools is thatwe don’t develop [people].” The various growthopportunities for staff such as mentoring amongcolleagues, inducting new staff members,benchmarking with other schools, in-houseworkshops run by facilitators, showing DVDs


and sending staff on appropriate workshopssponsored by the school resulted from theprincipal’s focus on staff development. The pro-cess of developing people intensified later inthe principal’s career when he focused on im-proving people’s strengths. With this renewedfocus, the number of growth opportunities forrole players had also increased.

The principal stated how leaders oftenwrongly try to develop people by sending themto inappropriate workshops. The principalblamed many schools for not realising that de-velopment “has to be an integral part of the wholestaff’s personal development”. He believed thatit is necessary to identify a person’s talent, hisor her “grace” before sending him or her on aworkshop:

There are people who are administrativelytalented ... but you shouldn’t allow them to workwith people ... Their gift is to work with comput-ers and ‘admin’ ... schools [send people] oncourses, but they don’t send the right person ...that’s why there are so many unhappy peoplearound.

He “quite deeply” believed that it was im-portant to “train them [teachers] in the principlesthat they are passionate about” (Steyn 2006: 5).In a previous study (Steyn 2006: 5), the principalexplained his strategy of assisting teachers intheir development. Instead of focusing on the‘weak points’ of staff, he identified their ‘strongpoints’. He always searched for appropriateworkshops that would benefit both the individualteacher and the school. For development to beeffective, the principal believed that he neededto “send them [teachers] on the best courses …buy the best quality material in the world and ...almost force them [to attend]”. Since the schoolannually budgeted for development programmes,teachers’ attendance at such workshops wasusually sponsored by the school.

Throughout his career the principal had en-riched the school curriculum by, among otherthings, adding more subjects such as studymethods, music and chess and by providing re-medial teaching to students at risk. He modelledthe importance of human relationships and cre-ated various collaborative structures in theschool for staff, parents and students to serveon. According to the principal, he was “reallythe exact opposite of an autocratic leader” andfelt he was in the right profession which he con-sidered to be his “calling”.

By developing people’s potential, it was pos-sible to build a school community that strivedtowards a common school goal.

Builing Community: “Start trusting and usingpeople … it’s a general principle.”

According to Laub’s OLA model (1999: 25),servant leaders build community by buildingstrong personal relationships, by workingcollaboratively with others, and by valuing thedifferences of others. To build a community,trust among role players is a prerequisite, as theprincipal stated: “Start trusting people... it is ageneral principle” in working as a school com-munity. His trust in people assisted his successin building a harmonious, friendly atmospherewithin the school. In reflecting on his leader-ship success the principal said, “I think the wis-dom I got from above to do things at the righttime, and the fact that I was able to gather theright people around me, were responsible for mysuccess.” The principal believed that “peoplestarted doing things for me not because theyhad to, but because they really wanted to ... hope-fully they enjoyed doing it” as a result of devel-oping their potential.

As he went about building a community, theprincipal had an open door policy: he waspresent “where things are happening”, had nu-merous formal and informal discussions, sentweekly letters to parents, provided parentingprogrammes, acknowledged the good work ofstaff, students and parents, and reached out tothe community (the Angel project, a communityoutreach project, and twinning with a disadvan-taged school in Mamelodi). In his own words,he “never spoke of my school; it isn’t my school;it has nothing to do with you [me] ... It’s ourschool; it’s a joint thing with the children, staff,parents, and even the private sector. I think ev-eryone has an unbelievable say and value.”

The principal had not been complacentthroughout his years as principal and he hadintroduced a number of initiatives, such as theB+ initiative to focus on the positive attitudesof people, cultivating winners by introducingvarious reward systems for learners, teachers,parents and even “friends of the school” andfocusing on people by providing an effectiveclient service (Steyn 2009, 2010). Over the yearshe also modelled the importance of building per-sonal and professional relationships and estab-

6 G. M. STEYN

lished collaborative structures in the school inwhich roles and responsibilities were distributed.Parents had the opportunity to serve on variousparent committees, and even join a prayer group,while there were more than 25 committees onwhich students could serve. By implication, theprincipal’s high regard for being a “family” alsorevealed his willingness to learn from others andbe among the followers he led.

Displaying Authenticity: “Compassion … it’sa very small thing, perhaps even insignificant”

Displaying authenticity is demonstrated bybeing open and accountable to others, beingwilling to learn from others and maintaining trustand integrity (Laub 1999: 25). The way in whichthe principal conveyed authenticity is explainedin the following statement.

The thing is it’s actually compassion… It’sa very small thing, perhaps even insignificant… like just stopping sometimes and listening tosomeone. I told the children that perhaps oneof the most important things about communi-cation is sometimes just saying nothing. Justkeeping quiet and being there for someone whoneeds you.

Having an open door policy and being avail-able “where things were happening” meant thathe was never too busy to listen to the needs andconcerns of all the individuals in the school. Heregarded himself as humble and believed thathumility is “almost the crux of leadership”. Al-though his school was successful in many ar-eas, he believed that he himself had “very fewtalents” and, given his own talents, the schoolshould have been “an average to below-aver-age school”. He referred to Jesus whose “wholeministry was something of humility … a serviceto people”. Jesus washed people’s feet, “the jobof a woman or one of the slaves” which was hispersonal example of being a “servant” to others.

The principal described how he honouredpeople (his staff members) in “many respects”as his “superiors”, which he believed made him“strong”. By doing this, “he gave people thefreedom to be themselves and to grow and dowhat they enjoyed. I gave people a lot of free-dom”. Furthermore, he believed that his uniquepersonality made it easy to do it: “I was fortu-nate enough to be blessed with a serene per-sonality and calmness.”

The principal’s experience of challenges dur-ing his principalship portrayed his humaneness:

At times I was depressed – being a princi-pal isn’t an easy job … People can be so cruel…it’s terrible. But … if you can’t give it [the “painand the burden”] to the Lord – and say, “Lord,now You take over ...” And then things oftenstart to change, because when you carry onfighting, you land in your grave ... What I wantto tell you now is my secret. My secret is that Ithink the Lord, to a great extent, the Lord didthe work.

He believed that everybody requires a pas-sion to be successful and his own passion wasalso commendable. He explained:

I feel that it’s passion that makes peoplesucceed in life. Passion can’t be extinguished…It has a ripple effect – you need to be able tosell what’s inside you … They [many people]are too busy with the wrong things. They dieinside because they don’t enjoy what they’redoing, and they also make the people aroundthem die because they can’t get excited aboutthe things they’re involved in.

By displaying authenticity principals showtheir sincere interest in and understanding ofpeople in the school. In doing this they are alsoin a better position to direct the behaviour ofrole players through their leadership support.This type of leadership is directed towards so-cial change by encouraging others throughhigher levels of values awareness and by ensur-ing that staff members look beyond their ownself-interests for the sake of the group (Norris etal. 2002: 87).

Providing Leadership: “We are missing some-thing about the child”

Servant leaders provide leadership by envi-sioning the future, taking the initiative and clari-fying goals (Laub 1999: 25). The principal ex-plained the vision and mission of the school onthe DVD: “To be the best Afrikaans primaryschool in the world, where every student, par-ent and staff member is happy, and every indi-vidual student receives the opportunity to de-velop his/her unique abilities optimally to thehonour of God” and “We as dynamic school arecommitted to excellence, to educate our studentswith the necessary skills and passion to thinkcreatively, reason critically, communicate effec-tively and learn continuously in order to become


responsible, productive and ethical citizens ofthe community. This will be attained within aneducational environment that is characterisedby high standards, a well-defined curriculum andexceptional staff (the best in the world) in part-nership with parents and the wider community.”As indicated in this vision and mission, the prin-cipal believed in focusing on a holistic approachto education and not only on academics, sportsand culture.

Since leadership and schools have becomeso complex, the principal realised the importanceand his responsibility to develop himself (Steyn2007, 2010). The principal believed that thegrowth of staff and the school depended uponthis growth. He explained:

The whole thing is self-development – I thinkthat’s the most important. If you are not grow-ing, you are dying … You must search, you mustdo research, you must listen, you must look,you must attend courses… You must force your-self ... Especially on your specific role and skills… you need to accept responsibility for your-self and, as I said to you, if you don’t grow your-self, the people under you don’t grow.

The principal showed the necessity forschools to continue to grow to meet global andsocietal challenges. In the story he said:

I showed a photo of how schools looked 50years ago and how they look today – and theonly difference was the colour of the photo ... Isthere something else in the schools? Do weapproach the child differently? ... The world isgrowing, so education must also grow. Yourmethodology must grow, the way you approachthe child ... So the [main] thing is to keep up, ...I know that what works in place A will notnecessarily work in place B, but you must findout what’s important for you, in your environ-ment.

He believed that the education system is “los-ing the essence of life”, as he explained:

But we are pushing these children so much,culturally, academically and in sport, that weare losing the essence of life … I would fight forthe whole spiritual development of the child …we place too little value [on this] and peoplestruggle and go downhill and become de-pressed and land up in hospitals and institu-tions … I think we are missing something aboutthe child … they [children] have to start get-ting fit on the inside.

To him, the joy of all role players was essen-tial: “One can’t just go to school, day in and dayout.” Every staff member should come to school“with a song in his [or her] heart”. He added:“I’m increasingly beginning to realise that thepeople who really make a success of everything[are the ones] with heart – that’s the thing.” Suchteachers would be able to “excite others”, inparticular their learners. He believed that he asprincipal played a major role in the happiness ofpeople and that he was in a fortunate position tomotivate and encourage people, particularly hisstaff. The principal often reminded his staffabout Phil Collins’s song “‘Another day for youand me in Paradise’, because you are in para-dise” (Steyn 2006: 12, 2007: 273). The effect ofinculcating happiness in students is illustratedby the following comment:

What I’ve seen is that children were sponta-neous and happy ... A mother once told me thatshe is so happy. Her child doesn’t even say helloto her in the morning but, when the child seesme, she jumps out out of the car and runs overto say hello. She embraced me ... It meant a lotto me.

Providing servant leadership implies turningthe traditional pyramid of organisations upsidedown: it means sharing the power of leaders andmaking leadership collective and collaborative(Trompenaars and Voerman 2010: 30).

Sharing Leadership: “The secret of any busi-ness … is ownership”

Laub’s OLA model (1999: 25) regards leadersas servant leaders when they facilitate a sharedvision, share power and release control, sharetheir status and promote others. Servant leader-ship and empowerment are closely linked andservant leaders empower others “to find theirown paths, and they, in turn, are inspired to helpothers find their best paths” (Patterson 2003: 6).The principal’s story supported this view: “Ev-eryone is actually a leader ... I believe that lead-ers are everywhere, so you must work on theirleadership skills ... a person has to be shaped.”He explained the essence of empowerment:

The secret of any business ... is ownership… one of the most important things is for allrole players to accept ownership ... and youmust think of very fine methods to develop jointresponsibility. Children should have the privi-lege to being able to have a say in the manage-

8 G. M. STEYN

ment of a school. Parents should have the privi-lege … I think everyone has an astonishing sayand value.

The principal’s approach to decision makingwas collaborative and democratic. In his story,the principal confirmed the necessity of taking“the people with you”. He clearly explained hisstance in Steyn (2006: 7):

If you are not able to take the people withyou, you are going to lose contact with yourpeople. So you have to make sure that you donot move too far ahead of them … I think onehas to be able to make them excited … so thatthey can begin to believe in themselves and dothings for themselves.

Sharing leadership was important to him, buteven more important was leaving the school withthe likelihood that the school would becomebetter after he had left. In this regard he said: “If

you leave and the place collapses, then it’s yourfault.” The “greatest gift” that he wanted togive to the school was a place that would be-came better after he left.

This view explains why it was important forthe principal to empower people “beyond” him-self so that they could run the school withouthim after he retired. He did not regard himself asthe key player in the school, but wanted to cre-ate a community of leaders that could lead theschool to more successful even without him.

DISCUSSION AND REFLECTION

The significance of the principal’s leadershiplies in the fact the principal remarkably revealedcharacteristics that are supported by Laub’s ser-vant leadership model (see Fig. 1). It was mainlythe core values of the principal that influenced

PRINCIPAL’S CORE VALUES AND PERSONAL TRAITS

Valued people: “very peopleoriented”; extraordinarily blessed witha great love for people – especiallyfor children

Displayed authentic ity: “Compassion”:stopping to listen; saying nothing; beingthere where things are happening; humilitythe crux of leadership; honouring andrespecting others; passion for education

Provided leadership: self-development important; “notautocratic”; holistic approach toeducation; approaching studentsdifferently; “Another day for youand me in Paradise”

Developed people: focusing on the“strong points” and not the “weakpoints”; providing many growthopportunities; matching individuals’development with their talents;enriching the school curriculum

Shared leadership: ownershipcrucial: “Every body is a leader.”;strong focus on empowerment evenbeyond himself; took people along;wanted to leave a better placebehind

Built community: “Start trusting and using people.”; a harmonious, friendly school atmosphere;“Everyone has an astonishing say and value.” ; open door policy; various methods ofcommunicating and cooperating with role players; being there where “things” were happening;appointing the “right people” to the staff

Fig. 1. The manifestation of the servant-leadership practice of the principal


each of the other characteristics of the servantleadership model. Firstly, the findings show howthe principal valued people through his passionand care for people. This characterised him as aservant leader. Servant leaders, as in the case ofthis principal, value people and place a high pri-ority on care to ensure that other people’s needsare best served (Cerit 2010: 304; Greenleaf 1998:19; Jacobson et al. 2005: 613; Norris et al. 2002:80; Saðnak 2010: 1145; Trompenaars andVoerman 2010: 27). Servant leadership is about“a school leader having a servant’s heart’(Hagstrom 2004: 84), which is also described inthe principal’s narrative. Other values that theprincipal portrayed also agreed with those foundin the Australian study on successful schoolleadership (Gurr et al. 2005: 545; Gurr et al. 2006:381) indicating that every person is important,every student can succeed, every child hasunrealised potential and the school should fo-cus on what is in the best interests of all stu-dents. Moreover, as in the studies done byNorris et al. (2002: 77) and Printy (2010: 113) theprincipal showed that his caring about othersmoved beyond caring about self and he demon-strated a sincere interest in the development andwelfare of others.

Secondly, displaying authenticity is a re-quirement for being a servant leader which wasdemonstrated uniquely by the principal’s lead-ership practice. In this narrative other core val-ues and personal traits of the principal influ-enced his servant leadership practice. They in-cluded his compassion, his availability to listen,his humility and respect of other people. Ser-vant leaders have passion (Spears 2010: 27;Trompenaars and Voerman 2010: 33) and the prin-cipal explicitly expressed his own passion foreducation as well as his longing that this pas-sion would be present in his teachers’ approachto teaching. Hagstrom (2004: 85) believes that“leadership is being a servant of people… andthe new pioneer who finds the way to make theirhearts sing’’. Another leadership quality thatemerged from the narrative was the principal’shumility and willingness to listen to the needsof others. Servant leaders are humble and arewilling to listen (Spears 2010: 27; Patterson2003:4). The principal had the ability to showthe correct emotions at a given moment in the“context of controlled humility’’ (Trompenaarsand Voerman 2010: 33). To be able to do this theprincipal listened carefully and was open to the

needs of others as reflected by other studies onsuccessful leadership (Jeffries 1998: 32; Jacobsonet al. 2005: 613; Raihani 2008: 491).

Thirdly, the principal’s values and personaltraits influenced his particular leadership ap-proach through which he envisioned the future,established the necessary initiatives and setsupporting goals. A vision has the potential togenerate excitement, passion and energy and toempower all role players: it is also necessary toobtain the school’s objectives (Gurr et al. 2006:381; Hoy and Smith 2007: 162; Pankake andMoller 2003: 7; Spears 2010: 27). In a previousstudy the principal stated that one of his “strongpoints” was to be a visionary leader (Steyn 2006:6). This school’s vision consisted of four parts:a focus on every student; safe, caring and posi-tive relationships in the school environment;expectations which focused on values regard-ing the behaviours and actions of staff, studentsand parents and the scope of the vision whichincluded lifelong learning and community socialcapital (cf Spears 2010: 29). The principal wantedthe school to be the “best Afrikaans school”,but he believed in focusing on a holistic ap-proach to learning rather than exclusively onacademics, sports and culture. In a developingsociety, the education system should also adapt,which explains why the principal required a vi-sion to refocus on the child. This also sup-ported the principal’s view of the importance ofcontinuous improvement to meet ever-chang-ing societal challenges. The principal did thisby establishing whole-staff consensus on schoolgoals. The principal also directed role players’behaviour professionally towards the sharedschool goals by way of the necessary communi-cation (Jacobson et al. 2005: 611; Gurr et al. 2006:375; Spears 2010: 28) which included regular staffmeetings, morning devotions in the staff roombefore school, weekly assemblies in the hall,weekly newsletters and parent evenings. Healso constantly tried to remind staff about theirworking in paradise (the school) and he encour-aged them to enjoy their calling as educators.

Fourthly, while the principal’s leadership in-fluenced his approach to developing people onthe one hand, it also showed how he sharedleadership in the school. As servant leader, hehad a passion to assist staff and students todevelop and grow (Trompenaars and Voerman2010: 35; Kelly and Saunders 2010: 138), evenbeyond himself. For teacher development the

10 G. M. STEYN

principal provided ample growth opportunitiesso that teachers could learn necessary skills toemerge as leaders (Danielson (2007: 19). It wascrucial for the principal to identify the potentialof individuals and then match the potential ofindividuals to particular tasks (Nel et al. 2008:369; Spears 2010: 29; Trompenaars and Voerman2010: 31). The school annually budgeted for pro-fessional development which included outsideand school-based programmes, providing proofof his commitment to developing his staff. Theaim of these growth opportunities was to assistteachers to develop to their full potential whilealso becoming committed to contributing to theschool’s goals. He regarded his own profes-sional development as crucial to encouragingthe development of others and assisting theschool’s development.

Because the principal believed that manypeople can act as leaders, he provided opportu-nities for collective and collaborative shared lead-ership in the school (Hagstrom 2004: 98; Perumal2009: 43; Spears 2010: 27). To this end, he ac-cepted the responsibility as a school leader tofacilitate the establishmment of a community ofleaders within the school which, in essence, re-quired an attitude of servanthood (Hagstrom2004: 160). The principal created committees inwhich staff, students and parents were repre-sented to assist in decision making (Jacobsonet al. 2005: 616) which contradicted strategiesthat promote isolation and limit participation, andauthoritarian approaches (Reyes and Wagstaff2005: 109; Jacobson et al. 2005: 616). He be-lieved that once role players had ownership ofdecision making, they were able to participatesuccessfully in reshaping the school. Helpingall school constituents to grow as leaders in theschool and to encourage them to utilise theirpassion for the sake of the students and parentsthey serve, almost invariably creates an effec-tive leadership community (Hagstrom 2004: 84).

Lastly, the characteristics of the principal’sservant-leadership approach described aboveculminate in his creation of a particular commu-nity within the school. In line with this, Aeltermanin Engels et al. (2008: 161) refers to the crucialrole of principals in the wellbeing of staff, colle-gial relationships between staff members andstaff’s commitment to PD and school develop-ment. Other studies confirm the importance ofharmonious relationships among staff since theyhave a crucial impact on students’ performance

(Louis et al.2010: 325; Gurr et al. 2005: 546). Thisimplies that principals should determine thestrengths and weaknesses of the school com-munity in order to find ways of promoting, en-couraging and energising the individual talentsof students, teachers and parents. By being“present” on the school grounds, which theprincipal advocated and demonstrated,made itwas possible to create a bond and enhance ef-fective collaboration between the principal andother role players in the school (McClain andRomaine 2007: 8). His type of leadership alsopromoted teamwork, collaboration, self-esteemand even self-actualisation among the constitu-ents in the school (Jacobson et al. 2005 613;Katz and Earl 2010: 30; Louis et al. 2010: 323;Patterson 2003: 5; Printy 2010: 115; Reyes andWagstaff 2005: 110).

CONCLUSION

In this study the researcher has attemptedto provide some insight into the leadership prac-tice of a principal and the way in which it reflectsthe characteristics of servant leadership. Thestudy demonstrates that a narrative allows a sto-ryteller to generate educational knowledge.

Considering the length of the principal’s ca-reer as school leader, it is important to realiseservant leadership takes time to develop andthat it encompasses a way of living and leadingthrough serving others. Moreover, a number oftraits characterise principals as servant leaders:they enhance the valuing and growth of people,they collaborate in order to build communities,they practice authenticity and they provide andalso share leadership in their schools. This studyfound that the principal’s personal set of valuesformed the foundation of his leadership practiceand directed him in his decisions and actionsregarding the development of the people, thebuilding of a school community, his preferredleadership style and the sharing of leadership inthe school. These values also assisted a princi-pal not only to focus on challenges within theschool, but also to adopt appropriate strategiesto cope with the increased complexity of theschool environment. It is therefore reasonableto suggest that at least part of the principal’sservant leadership success was a result of thesepersonal and professional values and prudentand continuing exercising of his focus on peopleand their happiness.


Despite the valuable findings, there is a limi-tation to the study. It involves the intricate rela-tionship between the contextual factors in a par-ticular school and execution of school leader-ship. This leads me to state that there is a needto develop leadership theories in order to canenhance our understanding of school contextswithin which effective leadership, in particularservant leadership takes place.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is based upon research sup-ported by the National Research Foundation inSouth Africa

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